Radar Signal Grouping for Reduced DBF Calculation Load

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing radar systems using digital beam forming (DBF) require a high amount of calculation, which increases with the number of reception channels, making it inefficient for achieving accurate positional information of targets.

Innovation Solution

A radar apparatus that groups reception signals into multiple channels and performs digital beam forming on each group, summing amplitudes or power of frequency components, and uses peak detection to calculate target distance, speed, and angle, reducing the overall calculation load while maintaining high accuracy.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If digital beam forming is performed on all reception channels to achieve accurate target position detection, then measurement precision is improved, but the amount of calculation increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetarget position detection accuracyVSAvoidamount of calculation

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The reception channels are divided into multiple groups, and digital beam forming is performed separately on each group rather than on all channels simultaneously. This segmentation reduces the computational complexity while maintaining detection accuracy through subsequent summing of results

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The results from digital beam forming on multiple groups are combined by summing the amplitudes or power of frequency components. This merging process integrates the partial results to achieve accurate target position detection without requiring full DBF on all channels

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

2Measurement precision

If the number of reception channels is increased to improve signal-to-noise ratio and target detection performance, then measurement precision is improved, but the amount of calculation for digital beam forming increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetarget detection accuracy and S/N ratioVSAvoidcomputational load

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

By segmenting the large number of reception channels into multiple smaller groups, the patent enables processing of more channels to improve S/N ratio while keeping the computational load of each DBF operation manageable through group-wise processing

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Data Source

PatentUS7812759B2Radar apparatus for detection position information of a target by receiving reflection signals reflected by the target with a plurality of reception antennas

Publication Date: 2010.10.12 MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORP

AI summary

A radar apparatus includes a DBF process portion for grouping reception signals over plural channels into plural groups and performing DBF on each group, a summing portion for summing amplitudes or power of frequency components obtained by the DBF performed by the DBF process portion on each group, a peak detecting portion for detecting a peak frequency of a signal of the electric wave reflected by a target from results of the summation at the summing portion, a distance/speed calculating portion for calculating the distance and speed of the target based on the peak frequency, and an angle calculating portion for extracting a frequency component of the peak frequency detected by the peak detecting portion to calculate the angle of the electric wave reflected by the target. Thus, the amount of DBF calculation can be reduced, and a highly accurate positional information of the target can be obtained.