Iee International Electronics and Engineering S.a.

Andreas Diewald

Dimitri Tatarinov

Peter Larsen

Claude Watgen

Sam Calmes

Mathieu Lu-Dac

Jochen Landwehr

Patrick Di Mario Cola

Oscar Gomez

Christian Hammes

Parth Raj Singh

Alan Koehler

Patrick Di Mario-Cola

Janine Cordie

A method for occupancy detection for at least one vehicle seat, using at least one transmit antenna and a plurality of receive antennas, includes: emitting a detection signal with each transmit antenna onto at least one vehicle seat, which detection signal is a frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar signal, and receiving with each receive antenna a reflected signal; recording sample data representing the reflected signal, the sample data having M channels, with M=N1·N2, where N1 is the number of transmit antennas and N2 is the number of receive antennas; for each channel, removing a component from the sample data that corresponds to a reflection from a static object; and applying a frequency estimation method to the sample data to at least implicitly determine at least one angle of arrival θcorresponding to a position of an occupant on a vehicle seat.

Method for seat occupancy detection

A radar sensor system and method for ascertaining whether an unattended child is present within an automotive vehicle. The radar sensor system carries out the method and includes a transmitter, at least one sensor, and processing circuitry. The method includes the steps of: illuminating at least one occupiable position within the vehicle with radiation of multiple frequencies; generating radar sensor signals from reflections of the transmitted radiation, a plurality of the radar sensor signals corresponding to different frequencies; and operating the processing circuitry for generating and determining if a first indicator value indicative of motion in the occupiable position satisfies a first predetermined criteria and, if so, generating and determining a second indicator value indicating a degree of repetitive pattern within the radar sensor signals, and determining presence of an unattended child in the vehicle if the second indicator value satisfies a second predetermined criteria.

Method and system for unattended child detection

A position determining device for determining the position of an object with reference to the position determining device, the position determining device encompassing: a transmitting device at a first location; a receiving device at a second location, the receiving device being configured for reception of a transmitted signal from the first transmitting device, and for determination of a transit time of the transmitted signal from the transmitting device to the object and from the object to the receiving device, the first location and the second location being at a distance from one another, and the position determining device being configured to determine, from the transit time, an ellipse on which the object lies and which has the first location and the second location as foci.

Position-determining device

A periodic type leaky wave antenna, formed, e.g. on a printed circuit board, using cells of a filled circular structure. The leaky wave antenna may be formed in a series fed patch configuration. In order to achieve a high quality factor with respect to high frequency sensitive beam, a circular patch structure may be used, giving the best area to perimeter ratio. The cavity model based design considerations yield a proportional Q-factor expression with respect to the geometrical ratio. The antenna design takes into consideration effects such as degradation at broadside and circular polarisation, as well as input reflection coefficient. The tuning of a delay loop length yields a simple optimization criterion in order to achieve Q-balancing, circular polarisation and a matched configuration.

Narrowband leaky wave antenna for sensing objects in relation to a vehicle

A radar system with frequency scanning beam steering is described for in-vehicle occupant detection and classification for seat-belt reminder functionality (SBR) and airbag suppression. The system includes an antenna system for which the main lobe direction (azimuth angle &#xf6;) is changing mostly linearly over frequency, a RF electronic transceiver electronic with at least one transmit channel and one or multiple receive channels with two outputs (I/Q) per channel. The data acquisition and signal processing/interpretation are made by a microcontroller system.

Radar sensor with frequency dependent beam steering

A method for sensing occupancy status within an automotive vehicle uses a radar sensor system, the radar sensor system includes an antenna system, at least one sensor and processing circuitry. The method comprises illuminating, using the antenna system, at least one occupiable position within the vehicle with continuous wave (CW signals), the CW signals being frequency modulated in time. At least one sensor signal (y(t,f. . . y(t,f)) reflected as a result of the CW signals, is received using at least one sensor the at least one sensor defining a plurality of receive channels (1 . . . i), each channel having a different frequency (f. . . f). Processing circuitry is operable for applying, for each receive channel (1 . . . i), DC offset removal to the corresponding sensor signal (y(t,f. . . y(t,f)) to generate a modified signal (y'(t, f) . . . y&#x2032;(t,f)); and generating, based on the modified signals (y&#x2032;(t, f) . . . y&#x2032;(t,f)) one or more occupancy status signals, the occupancy status signal indicating a property related to said at least one occupiable position.

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Kell am See, Germany

Andreas Diewald