Patent ID: 7489265

Claim:
A process of determining target parameters of an object within a field of detection of an automotive radar system, said process comprising the steps of: (a) establishing a target range from a sequence of ranges provided by an automotive radar system secured to a vehicle; (b) dwelling on said target range for an initial dwell time to obtain radar data; (c) determining if said radar data corresponds to the presence of an object or to the absence of an object at said target range based on probability density distributions of an object being present and being absent at said target range, and if such said determination cannot be made, then repeating steps (b) and (c) until said determination can be made; (d) if said radar data is determined to correspond to the presence of an object in step (c), then dwelling at said target range for an extended dwell time to obtain additional radar data for determining the target parameters of said object before proceeding to step (e); and (e) establishing the next of said sequence of ranges as the target range before reiterating steps (b)-(e).