Lateral-bin monitoring for radar target detection

1. A method performed by a radar system that is mounted to a mobile platform, the method comprising:

defining a region of interest that is on at least one side of the mobile platform, the region of interest comprising a plurality of lateral bins having lengths that span at least a portion of the at least one side of the mobile platform;

transmitting and receiving a radar signal that propagates through at least a portion of the region of interest, the radar signal comprising multiple frames;

monitoring a quantity of consecutive frames of the multiple frames that have detections located within at least one lateral bin of the plurality of lateral bins, the detections determined from the received radar signal; and

determining that at least one object is present within the at least one lateral bin responsive to the quantity of consecutive frames with detections being greater than or equal to a threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the mobile platform comprises a vehicle.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

responsive to the determining that the at least one object is present within the at least one lateral bin, outputting an indication of the at least one object to a radar-based system of the vehicle to enable the radar-based system to alert a driver to a presence of the at least one object.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

responsive to the determining that the at least one object is present within the at least one lateral bin, determining that the at least one object is associated with a road barrier; and

outputting an indication of the road barrier to a radar-based system of the vehicle to enable the radar-based system of the vehicle to suppress an alert.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein:

the at least one lateral bin comprises a first lateral bin and a second lateral bin; and

the monitoring of the quantity of consecutive frames comprises:

monitoring a first quantity of consecutive frames that have a first set of the detections within the first lateral bin; and

monitoring a second quantity of consecutive frames that have a second set of the detections within the second lateral bin.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the monitoring comprises:

determining that the quantity of consecutive frames with detections is equal to another threshold, the other threshold being smaller than the threshold; and

updating a state of the at least one lateral bin from an invalid state to a new state, the new state indicating that the quantity of consecutive frames with detections is greater than or equal the other threshold, the invalid state representing an initial state of the at least one lateral bin.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the monitoring further comprises:

after updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the invalid state to the new state, determining that the quantity of consecutive frames with detections is equal to the threshold; and

updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the new state to a mature state, the mature state indicating that the quantity of consecutive frames with detections is greater than or equal to the threshold.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the determining that the at least one object is present within the at least one lateral bin is responsive to the at least one lateral bin being in the mature state.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the monitoring further comprises:

after updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the new state to the mature state, resetting the quantity of consecutive frames with detections to zero responsive to a next frame of the multiple frames having no detections within the at least one lateral bin; and

updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the mature state to a coasted state responsive to the quantity of consecutive frames with detections being reset to zero, the coasted state indicating that the at least one lateral bin was previously in the mature state prior to the next frame having no detections.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the monitoring further comprises:

after updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the mature state to the coasted state, monitoring a quantity of consecutive frames having no detections located within the at least one lateral bin; and

updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the coasted state to the invalid state based on the quantity of consecutive frames without detections being equal to an additional threshold.

11. The method of claim 6 , wherein the monitoring further comprises:

after updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the invalid state to the new state, resetting the quantity of consecutive frames with detections to zero responsive to a next frame of the multiple frames having no detections within the at least one lateral bin; and

updating the state of the at least one lateral bin from the new state to the invalid state responsive to the quantity of consecutive frames with detections being reset to zero.

12. An apparatus comprising:

a radar system comprising:

at least one antenna array;

a transceiver coupled to the at least one antenna array, the transceiver configured to transmit and receive a radar signal using the antenna array, the radar signal propagating through at least a portion of a region of interest, the radar signal comprising multiple frames; and

a processor coupled to the transceiver, the processor configured to:

define the region of interest, the region of interest being on at least one side of the apparatus, the region of interest comprising a plurality of lateral bins having lengths that span at least a portion of the at least one side of the apparatus;

monitor a quantity of consecutive frames of the multiple frames that have detections located within at least one lateral bin of the plurality of lateral bins, the detections determined from the received radar signal; and

determine that at least one object is present within the at least one lateral bin responsive to the quantity of consecutive frames with detections being greater than or equal to a threshold.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the apparatus comprises a vehicle.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein:

the radar system comprises:

a first rear-mounted radar system positioned towards a left side of the vehicle; and

a second rear-mounted radar system positioned towards a right side of the vehicle; and

the at least one side comprises both the left side and the right side.

15. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein:

widths of the plurality of lateral bins are approximately one meter; and

the lengths of the plurality of lateral bins are approximately ten meters.

16. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the at least one object comprises at least one of the following:

a moving object; or

a stationary object.

17. Non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executable instructions that, responsive to execution by a processor, cause the processor to:

accept multiple radar data cubes respectively associated with multiple frames of a radar receive signal;

monitor quantities of consecutive frames having detections located within respective lateral bins, the detections determined based on the multiple radar data cubes, the quantities of consecutive frames comprising a particular quantity of consecutive frames having detections located within a particular lateral bin of the respective lateral bins; and

determine that at least one object is present within the particular lateral bin responsive to the particular quantity of consecutive frames with detections being greater than or equal to a threshold.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 17 , wherein:

the non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprises further computer-executable instructions that, responsive to execution by the processor, cause the processor to:

accept digital beat signals derived from the radar receive signal; and

generate the multiple radar data cubes based on the digital beat signals, the multiple radar data cubes respectively associated with the multiple frames of the radar receive signal; and

the multiple radar data cubes comprise amplitude and phase information associated with different range bins, different Doppler bins, and at least one receive channel.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 17 , wherein:

the non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprises further computer-executable instructions that, responsive to execution by the processor, cause the processor to map locations of the detections to the respective lateral bins based on information contained within the multiple radar data cubes and dimensions of the respective lateral bins; and

the dimensions of the respective lateral bins encompass multiple range bins or multiple angular bins.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 17 , wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprises further computer-executable instructions that, responsive to execution by the processor, cause the processor to:

update a state of the particular lateral bin from an invalid state to a new state responsive to the particular quantity of consecutive frames with detections being equal to another threshold, the other threshold being smaller than the threshold;

update the state of the particular lateral bin from the new state to a mature state responsive to the particular quantity of consecutive frames with detections being equal to the threshold;

update the state of the particular lateral bin from the mature state to a coasted state responsive to resetting the particular quantity of consecutive frames to zero;

update the state of the particular lateral bin from the coasted state to the invalid state responsive to a quantity of consecutive frames without detections being equal to an additional threshold; and

determine that the at least one object is present within the particular lateral bin responsive to the particular lateral bin being in the mature state or the coasted state.