Patent ID: 7495605

Claim:
A radar apparatus that uses a direction of arrival estimation algorithm performed at a predetermined time interval to detect an object, the radar apparatus comprising: transmitting means for transmitting a wave signal to the object; receiving means for receiving the transmitted wave signal reflected from the object; beat signal generation means for generating a plurality of beat signals based on the received wave signal; correlation matrix generation means for calculating a plurality of correlation matrices based on the beat signals with respect to each frequency component of the beat signals; addition means for calculating a plurality of addition correlation matrices; storing means for storing at least a portion of a plurality of previous correlation matrices calculated by the correlation matrix generation means at a previous time, or that stores at least a portion of a plurality of previous addition correlation matrices calculated by the addition correlation matrix generation means at the previous time, the addition means calculating the addition correlation matrices by adding the correlation matrices calculated by the correlation matrix generation means to the previous correlation matrices or the previous addition correlation matrices stored by the storing means; detection means for detecting at least one frequency component of the beat signals, the frequency component satisfying a predetermined condition; extraction means for extracting an extraction matrix from the addition correlation matrices, the extraction matrix corresponding to a frequency component closest to the frequency component detected by the detection means; and direction calculation means for calculating a direction of the object with respect to the radar apparatus based on the extraction matrix, wherein the transmitting means or the receiving means includes a plurality of elements arranged in an array, and each of the beat signals generated by the beat signal generation means corresponds to each of the elements.