Aurora Operations, Inc.

Apple Inc.

Chunshu Li

Stephen C Crouch

Jouya Jadidian

Mohammad Bagher Vahid Far

Vaneet Pathak

Mikheil Tsiklauri

Bo Li

A multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar sensor encodes or decodes radar signals generated by multiple MIMO transmitters using a mixture of sub-set digital codes that discriminate between different sub-sets of MIMO transmitters and Doppler-division codes that discriminate between different MIMO transmitters within each of the sub-sets.

Mixed multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar

A vehicle radar sensor utilizes Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar signals that incorporate non-uniform FMCW chirps having chirp profiles that differ from one another to sense one or more parameters of one or more objects in a field of view of the radar sensor. The chirp profiles may differ from one another in various manners, e.g., based on starting frequency, repetition interval, duration and/or slope, and among other advantages, may be used to enhance sensing of various parameters such as range, Doppler/velocity and/or angle.

Vehicle radar sensor utilizing non-uniform frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) chirps

Time-division quadrature sampling may be used in a pulse-modulated continuous wave (PMCW) radar receiver circuit, e.g., as may be employed in various types of radar sensors used in automotive and other applications, to enable a quadrature sampling circuit to sequence between digitally sampling different complex components of a received radar signal at different times.

Phase-modulated continuous wave radar receiver with time division quadrature sampling

A multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar system synthesizes a virtual antenna array where at least a subset of the transmit antennas and receive antennas forming the virtual antenna array are disposed in different local oscillator domains. In some instances, doing so enables radar sensors to be constructed using multiple Antenna On Package (AOP) devices that lack support for cascading or that otherwise would have limited angular resolution on their own to adequately discriminate between various objects in the environment of an autonomous or other vehicle to be used collectively by a vehicle control system in connection with the autonomous control of a vehicle.

Virtual antenna array with distributed aperture

A radio detection and ranging (RADAR) sensor system for vehicles, such as autonomous vehicles, includes a first RADAR sensor configured to provide first RADAR data descriptive of an environment of a vehicle having a first antenna configured to output a first RADAR beam having a first azimuthal component over a first angular range and a second RADAR sensor configured to provide second RADAR data descriptive of the environment of the vehicle, the second RADAR sensor having a second antenna configured to output a second RADAR beam having a second azimuthal component that is narrower than the first azimuthal component of the first RADAR beam, wherein the second RADAR sensor is configured to sweep the second RADAR beam over a second angular range closer to a rear of the vehicle than a front of the vehicle to obtain the second RADAR data.

Radar sensor system for vehicles

A vehicle radar system utilizes multiple radar sensors having overlapping fields of view to effectively synthesize a distributed radar antenna array aperture from the outputs of the multiple radar sensors and effectively enhance one or more of angular resolution, detection range and signal to noise ratio beyond that supported by any of the radar sensors individually.

Distributed radar antenna array aperture

During operation, a transmitter in an electronic device may provide, to a transmission path, an electrical signal. This electrical signal may be divided by the power splitter into a first output electrical signal in a first output transmission path and a second output electrical signal in a second output transmission path, which may result in transmitting of the first wireless signal and the second wireless signal by antennas. Because the second output transmission path may include a delay element that provides a delay, the second wireless signal may be delayed relative to the first wireless signal. Moreover, N radar receivers in the electronic device may receive first wireless-return signals corresponding to the first wireless signal and second wireless-return signals corresponding to the second wireless signal. These wireless-return signals may be combined to create a virtual array MIMO radar having an antenna aperture size of 2N.

Power-splitter-based virtual array

An electronic device includes M separate radar transmitters and N separate radar receivers co-located in the electronic device, where the M radar transmitters and the N radar receivers are arranged in a circular architecture providing 360&#xb0; coverage in a horizontal plane. Moreover, the N radar receivers are synchronized, e.g., using a clock signal. During operation, subsets of the M radar transmitters sequentially transmit radar signals and, when a given subset of the M radar transmitters is transmitting, at least a subset of the N radar receivers performs radar measurements. Furthermore, at least the subset of the N radar receivers can perform the radar measurements using circular beamforming. Based at least in part on the radar measurements, the electronic device determines a location of an object in an environment around the electronic device, where the location includes a range and an angular position.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Chunshu Li