Patent ID: 8264398

Claim:
An onboard radar apparatus comprising: a transmission wave generating unit configured to generate a transmission wave; a vertically polarized wave transmitting antenna configured to vertically polarize and transmit the transmission wave; a horizontally polarized wave transmitting antenna configured to horizontally polarize and transmit the transmission wave; a receiving antenna configured to receive a reflection wave reflected from an object; a switch control unit configured to perform a switching between the vertically polarized wave transmitting antenna and the horizontally polarized wave transmitting antenna, the switch control unit controlling a supply of the transmission wave, which has been generated by the transmission wave generating unit, to the switched one of the vertically polarized wave transmitting antenna and the horizontally polarized wave transmitting antenna, so as to alternately transmit the transmission wave that is vertically polarized and the transmission wave that is horizontally polarized; a receiving unit configured to receive one of the reflection wave corresponding to the transmission wave that is vertically polarized and the reflection wave corresponding to the transmission wave that is horizontally polarized as a reception signal, based on receiving levels of the reflection waves, which have been received by the receiving antenna before and after the switching is performed by the switch control unit; and a storage unit configured to store the reception signal, which has been received by the receiving unit, every time the switching between the vertically polarized wave transmitting antenna and the horizontally polarized wave transmitting antenna is performed, and wherein the receiving unit compares the reception signal stored in the storage unit with the reception signal, which has been received by the receiving antenna after the switching between the vertically polarized wave transmitting antenna and the horizontally polarized wave transmitting antenna is performed by the switch control unit, so as to receive the reception signal with a high receiving level.