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

Claim 0:
1. A radar system for use in an autonomous vehicle, comprising:
an antenna module comprising one or more transmit antennas that are configured to radiate one or more transmission radio frequency (RF) beams within a field of view (FoV) scan range of a surrounding environment of the autonomous vehicle and a plurality of receive antennas configured to receive one or more return RF beams reflected from the surrounding environment and generate radar data from the one or more return RF beams; and
a perception module coupled to the antenna module and configured to detect and identify one or more objects from the one or more return RF beams, wherein the perception module is further configured to:
generate a three-dimensional (3D) pixel map from 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,
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, and
wherein the perception module is further configured to change the FoV based on a detection of the one or more objects;

traverse the 3D pixel map to identify other pixels containing the one or more detected objects that neighbor a subject pixel;
determine whether the subject pixel and a neighbor pixel are assigned to clusters;
assign 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;
assign 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
merge 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.