International Business Machines Corporation

Ay Dee Kay LLC

Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC

Globalfoundries Inc.

Danny Elad

Dan Corcos

Thomas E Morf

Ofer Markish

Noam Kaminski

Benny Sheinman

Lukas Kull

Tom Heller

Oded Katz

Evgeny Shumaker

Bernhard Klein

Daniel Joseph Friedman

Alberto Valdes Garcia

Michel Despont

David Goren

Marko Mlinar

Roee Ben-Yishay

Roi Carmon

Simon Srot

Bernd W Gotsmann

Shlomo Shlafman

Ross F Jatou

Alexander V Rylyakov

Jose A Tierno

Mihai A Sanduleanu

Mehmet Soyuer

Kazushige Toriyama

Keishi Okamoto

Jakob Vovnoboy

Israel Berger

Michael Grubman

Shraga Kraus

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems are equipped with channel extenders to further increase the number of receive and/or transmit antennas that can be supported by a given radar transceiver. One illustrative radar system includes: a radar transceiver to generate a transmit signal and to downconvert at least one receive signal; and a receive-side extender that couples to a set of multiple receive antennas to obtain a set of multiple input signals, that adjustably phase-shifts each of the multiple input signals to produce a set of phase-shifted signals, and that couples to the radar transceiver to provide the at least one receive signal, the at least one receive signal being a sum of the phase-shifted signals. An illustrative receive-side extender includes: multiple phase shifters each providing an adjustable phase shift to a respective input signal; a power combiner that forms a receive signal by combining outputs of the multiple phase shifters.

MIMO channel extenders with associated systems and methods

One illustrative integrated electromagnetic-acoustic sensor includes: a ground plane; a patch antenna above the ground plane to send or receive an electromagnetic (EM) signal having an EM signal frequency; and an array of capacitive micromachined acoustic transducers formed by cavities between the patch antenna and a base electrode to send or receive an acoustic signal having an acoustic signal frequency. One illustrative sensing method includes: driving or sensing a EM signal between a ground plane and a patch antenna; and driving or sensing an acoustic signal between the patch antenna and a base electrode, the base electrode and the patch antenna having an array of capacitive micromachined acoustic transducer cavities therebetween.

Integrated electromagnetic-acoustic sensor and sensing

Disclosed active reflector apparatus and methods that inhibit self-induced oscillation. One illustrative apparatus embodiment includes an amplifier and an adjustable phase shifter. The amplifier amplifies a receive signal to generate a transmit signal, the transmit signal causing interference with the receive signal. The adjustable phase shifter modifies the phase of the transmit signal relative to that of the receive signal to inhibit oscillation. A controller may periodically test a range of settings for the adjustable phase shifter to identify undesirable phase shifts prone to self-induced oscillation, and may maintain the phase shift setting at a value that inhibits oscillation.

Active reflector with oscillation inhibition

A centralized occupancy detection system enables monitoring of multiple seats, or more generally, multiple stations, with a single sensor. One illustrative vehicle includes: one or more stations each configured to accommodate an occupant of the vehicle, a radar-reflective surface, and a radar transceiver configured to use the radar-reflective surface to detect an occupant of at least one of the stations. Another illustrative vehicle includes: multiple stations to each accommodate an occupant of the vehicle, and a radar transceiver configured to examine each of the multiple stations to determine whether that station has an occupant.

Centralized occupancy detection system

A radar detection method with receive antenna calibration includes: forming a detection matrix from signals detected by an arrangement of receive antennas in response to chirps transmitted by an arrangement of transmit antennas, the detection matrix having multiple rows corresponding to the chirps, multiple columns corresponding to a sample of the signals, and multiple planes corresponding the receive antennas; deriving a range matrix by performing a frequency transform on a portion of each row of the detection matrix; deriving a velocity matrix by performing a frequency transform on a portion of each column of the range matrix; deriving a direction-of-arrival matrix by performing a frequency transform on a portion of one or more layers of the velocity matrix; analyzing the direction-of-arrival matrix to determine a current peak width; and adjusting, based on the current peak width, phase shifts associated with one or more antennas.

Calibrating array antennas based on signal energy distribution as a function of angle

Automotive radar systems may employ a reconfigurable connection of antennas to radar transmitters and/or receivers. An illustrative embodiment of an automotive radar system includes: a radar transmitter; a radar receiver; and a digital signal processor coupled to the radar receiver to detect reflections of a signal transmitted by the radar transmitter and to derive signal measurements therefrom. At least one of the radar transmitter and the radar receiver are switchable to provide the digital signal processor with signals from each of multiple combinations of transmit antenna and receive antenna.

Reconfigurable MIMO radar

An improved circuit configuration is disclosed for calibrating and/or verifying the operation of phase shifters in a phased array radar system. In one illustrative embodiment, a method includes: (i) programming a set of phase shifters to convert a radio frequency signal into a set of channel signals; (ii) splitting off a monitor signal from each channel signal while coupling the set of channel signals to a set of antenna feeds; and (iii) while taking the monitor signals in pairs associated with adjacent channels, measuring a relative phase between each pair of monitor signals.

Radar array phase shifter verification

A radar antenna calibration method includes: forming a detection matrix from signals detected by an arrangement of receive antennas in response to chirps transmitted by an arrangement of transmit antennas, the detection matrix having multiple rows corresponding to the chirps, multiple columns corresponding to a signal sample, and multiple planes corresponding the receive antennas; deriving a range matrix by performing a frequency transform on a portion of each row of the detection matrix; extracting a slice of the range matrix, with different rows of the slice being associated with different chirps and with different receive antennas; deriving a velocity matrix from the extracted slice by performing a frequency transform on a portion of each column of the extracted slice; analyzing the velocity matrix to determine a current peak width; and adjusting, based on the current peak width, phase shifts associated with one or more of the receive antennas.

Calibrating array antennas based on signal energy distribution as a function of velocity

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Moshav Liman, Israel

Danny Elad