Radar apparatus

Assignee: Fujitsu Ten Limited

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Quick Facts

Patent No.: US 7,190,305
App. No.: 11/070,601
Granted: Mar 13, 2007
Kind: B2

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Abstract

In a radar apparatus, a receiving antenna includes a plurality of antenna elements, each receiving, as a reception signal, radio waves emitted into space and reflected off a target object. An analog signal is obtained by downconverting and putting a bandwidth constraint on the reception signal, and is then converted to a digital signal. Based on the digital signal, a signal processing unit detects the bearing of the target object. The signal processing unit performs processing based on outputs of two sets of the antenna elements.

Claims (42)

1. A radar apparatus comprising:

a transmitting unit that emits a transmitter pulse, in the form of a radio wave, into space;

a receiving antenna including a plurality of antenna elements each of which receives, as a reception signal, the radio wave that reaches a target object and is reflected off the target object;

a receiving unit that receives the reception signal, downconverts the reception signal and puts a bandwidth constraint on the reception signal to obtain an analog signal, converts the analog signal into a digital signal, and outputs the digital signal; and

a signal processing unit that detects a bearing of the target object, based on the digital signal, wherein

a first transaction includes processing of signals output from a first set of the antenna elements,

a second transaction involving processing of the signals output from a second set of the antenna elements, and

the signal processing unit executes a specified process based on an output of the first transaction and an output of the second transaction.

2. The radar apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein, the specified process is a monopulse process.

3. The radar apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the monopulse process is a phase comparison monopulse process.

4. The radar apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the monopulse process is an amplitude comparison monopulse process.

5. The radar apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein

the first set of antenna elements includes a specified number of antenna elements,

the second set of antenna elements also includes the specified number of antenna elements, and

there is a shift-count number of the antenna elements between a first antenna element of the first set and a first antenna element of the second set.

6. The radar apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein

if the specified number of the antenna elements is N, then the shift-count is one.

7. The radar apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein the specified number of antenna elements is N−1.

8. The radar apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein

there are a plurality of monopulse transaction sets, each of which includes the first transaction and the second transaction.

9. The radar apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the signal processing unit limits a detection range in the monopulse process to a predetermined range.

10. The radar apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein

the signal processing unit additionally deploys a predetermined high-resolution process, when there is a possibility of plural target objects.

11. The radar apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein

the predetermined high-resolution process is a Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) method.

12. The radar apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein