Radar Receiver Sampling-Rate Adjustment for Motion Blur Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Radar systems face challenges in detecting moving objects due to motion blur, which causes signal energy smearing across multiple range-velocity bins, leading to reduced sensitivity and detection failure, especially for objects at large distances and high velocities.
Innovation Solution
A radar receiver design that adjusts the sampling rate based on the index of the slow time axis in a 2-dimensional array, using a sampling-rate-adjuster to modify DFT calculations and resample digital values, thereby improving the capture of energy associated with moving objects.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a fixed sampling rate is used for DFT calculations, then the system complexity is low and power consumption is reduced, but the sensitivity for detecting moving objects is degraded due to motion blur causing energy smearing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the sampling rate variable instead of fixed. The sampling rate is dynamically adjusted based on the slow time axis index, allowing the system to adapt to different detection scenarios. This dynamic adjustment compensates for motion blur effects by optimizing the sampling rate for objects at different velocities and ranges, thereby improving detection sensitivity without requiring complex hardware modifications
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the sampling rate parameter based on the slow time axis index to optimize detection performance. By modifying this key parameter dynamically, the system can capture energy from moving objects more effectively across different velocity and range conditions. This parameter change approach resolves the contradiction by improving reliability through adaptive sampling while keeping the overall system structure relatively simple
2Reliability
If the sampling rate is increased to capture more energy from moving objects, then detection sensitivity is improved, but power consumption and implementation cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the sampling rate parameter dynamically based on the slow time axis index rather than using a uniformly high sampling rate. This allows the system to increase sampling rate only when and where needed to capture moving object energy, rather than continuously operating at maximum sampling rate. Consequently, detection sensitivity is improved for moving objects while avoiding the proportional increase in power consumption that would result from a fixed high sampling rate across all conditions
3Reliability
If a variable sampling rate based on slow time axis index is applied, then energy capture for moving objects is improved, but the processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by adjusting the sampling rate based on the slow time axis index, which represents different radar chirps. This variable sampling rate approach improves energy capture for moving objects by adapting to their velocity and range characteristics. The processing complexity increase is managed by implementing this parameter change through software or firmware control of the ADC, avoiding the need for complex additional hardware processing stages
Data Source
AI summary
A radar receiver comprising: an ADC (510) that samples analogue intermediate frequency, IF, signalling in order to generate digital signalling, wherein the digital signalling comprises a plurality of digital-values; a digital processor that populates a 2-dimensional array of bin-values based on the digital-values, such that: a first axis of the 2-dimensional array is a fast time axis and a second axis of the 2-dimensional array is a slow time axis; and a sampling-rate-adjuster that is configured to set a sampling rate associated with the bin-values in the 2-dimensional array based on an index of the slow time axis. The digital processor also performs DFT calculations on the bin-values in the 2-dimensional array along the fast time axis and the slow time axis in order to determine the range and velocity of any detected objects.