Patent ID: 6842113

Claim:
In the context of a microwave sensor for transmitting a plurality of microwaves of different frequency toward one or more protected areas and carrying out one or more object detection operations based on at least a portion of the microwaves which are reflected from one or more objects at least partially within at least one of the protected area or areas, a microwave sensor characterized in that it is equipped with one or more distance identifying means for calculating one or more relative distance or distances from the distance identifying means to at least one of the object or objects at least partially within at least one of the protected area or areas based on at least a portion of the reflected microwaves; one or more moved distance identifying means for calculating one or more moved distance or distances per unit time of at least one of the object or objects at least partially within at least one of the protected area or areas; and one or more object determination means for receiving one or more outputs from at least one of the distance identifying means and one or more outputs from at least one of the moved distance identifying means, and for carrying out one or more object detection determination operations such that one or more moved distance-per-unit-time value or values, at least one of which serves as trigger value for object detection determination, is or are set lower as at least one of the relative distance or distances to at least one of the object or objects at least partially within at least one of the protected area or areas grows smaller.