US 12,292,496 B2
Method and device for determining an angle of a target object
Wolfgang Doerr, Wiehl (DE); Uri Iurgel, Wuppertal (DE); and Stephanie Lessmann, Erkrath (DE)
Assigned to Aptiv Technologies AG, Schaffhausen (CH)
Filed by Aptiv Technologies AG, Schaffhausen (CH)
Filed on Feb. 9, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/650,514.
Claims priority of application No. 21157676 (EP), filed on Feb. 17, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2022/0260701 A1, Aug. 18, 2022
Int. Cl. G01S 13/42 (2006.01); G01S 7/35 (2006.01); G01S 13/931 (2020.01)
CPC G01S 13/42 (2013.01) [G01S 7/356 (2021.05); G01S 13/931 (2013.01)] 23 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
estimating an angle of a target object with respect to a host vehicle by:
sending, with at least one radar transmit element of a plurality of antenna transmit elements of a radar system of the host vehicle, a radar signal towards the target object;
receiving, with at least one antenna receiver element of a plurality of receive elements of the radar system, radar signals reflected by the target object;
calculating, via a processing unit of the host vehicle, a transformation of the reflected radar signals including a result of the transformation that depends on a range with respect to the host vehicle;
generating, via the processing unit and for each of a set of range bins provided by the transformation, a long beam vector by rearranging the result of the transformation including rearranging beam vector elements for chirps of the reflected radar signals such that the long beam vector comprises elements of the transformation from all receiver elements, wherein each entry of the long beam vector corresponds to one of the range bins in the set of range bins;
calculating, via the processing unit and for each range bin in the set of range bins, a reference vector based on a signal model that depends on a motion of the target object relative to the radar system and that is parameterized regarding the angle of the target object, wherein each of the reference vectors is calculated based on i) a range rate or velocity of the target object relative to the radar system, and ii) a respectively selected angle in a predefined range of angles; and
determining a correlation result by correlating, via the processing unit, the long beam vector and the reference vectors for the predefined range of angles; and
outputting, via the processing unit, the angle of the target object determined based on the correlation result for controlling the host vehicle.