Patent ID: 11867789
Assignee: METAWAVE CORPORATION
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 18:
19. A method of angular resolution refinement, comprising:
transmitting a radio frequency (RF) beam within a field of view (FoV) scan range of a surrounding environment with a beam steering radar system;
receiving return RF beams from the surrounding environment at a plurality of receive antennas of the beam steering radar system;
generating radar data from the return RF beams and detecting one or more objects from the radar data;
generating a three-dimensional (3D) pixel map from the radar data including angle of arrival data,
wherein the angle of arrival data are partitioned into a plurality of bins that are organized at a specified angle interval for the FoV scan range, and
wherein the 3D pixel map comprises a 3D coordinate vector having range data in a first axis, velocity data in a second axis, and the angle of arrival data in a third axis;

traversing the 3D pixel map to identify other pixels containing a detected object that neighbors a subject pixel;
changing the FoV based on a detection of the detected object;
determining whether the subject pixel and a neighbor pixel are assigned to clusters;
assigning the detected object in the neighbor pixel to a same cluster as that of the subject pixel when the subject pixel is assigned to a cluster and not the neighbor pixel;
assigning the detected object in the subject pixel to a same cluster as that of the neighbor pixel when the neighbor pixel is assigned to a cluster and not the subject pixel; and
merging a first cluster associated with the subject pixel and a second cluster associated with the neighbor pixel when the subject pixel and the neighbor pixel are assigned to different clusters.