Patent ID: 7782249
Filing Date: 2010-08-24
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
1. A detection and ranging device with a transmission sensor array and a reception sensor array that is formed of n (2≦n) sensor elements, estimating a target count indicating the number of targets based on reflected signals of transmission signals sent from the transmission sensor array and reflected from the targets, and estimating an angle at which each reflected signal comes based on the target count, the detection and ranging device comprising: a correlation-vector generating unit that generates correlation vectors based on outputs of the n sensor elements of the reception sensor array; a pseudo-spatial-average-covariance-matrix calculating unit that calculates a pseudo-forward-spatial-average-covariance matrix based on the correlation vectors generated by the correlation-vector generating unit; a target-count-estimation-matrix generating unit that generates a target-count-estimation matrix based on the pseudo-forward-spatial-average-covariance matrix calculated by the pseudo-spatial-average-covariance-matrix calculating unit; and a target-count estimating unit that estimates the target count based on an index defined by using diagonal elements of a diagonal matrix or elements of an upper triangular matrix, as a result of matrix decomposition performed on the target-count-estimation matrix generated by the target-count-estimation-matrix generating unit.