Patent ID: 7652616

Claim:
A target object detection system for emitting, toward a target object, transmission signals as transmission waves, whose frequencies have been modulated successively into a plurality of stepped frequencies, and for receiving echoes of the transmission waves reflected from the target object, thereby to calculate a relative velocity of the target object by frequency-analyzing reception signals obtained from the echoes, the target object detection system comprising: a frequency-modulation unit that successively executes, within a measurement time derived from a desired velocity resolution, a plurality of times iterated frequency-modulation processes, where each of the frequency-modulation processes successively modulates the transmission signals into the stepped frequencies; and a frequency-analysis unit that frequency-analyzes, within said measurement time, for each of the stepped frequencies, throughout the plurality of frequency-modulation processes those signals, among the reception signals, corresponding to the identical stepped frequency in the frequency-modulation processes, wherein said measurement time is a minimum frequency modulation period required for the desired velocity resolution.