Patent ID: 7663537

Claim:
A target detecting apparatus for a continuous wave type radar disposed on a vehicle, the apparatus comprising: a transceiver section that transmits a first signal into a measuring region, receives a second signal transmitted from the measuring region, and produces a beat signal indicating a difference in frequency between the first and second signals; a reception data producing unit that produces a time series of N, which is an integer equal to or higher than three, pieces of reception data from the beat signal; a data length determining unit that divides the measuring region into a plurality of search areas according to distance from the vehicle, and determines a time data length for each of the search areas, the time data length for each search area differing from those for the other search areas; a time data extracting unit that extracts a plurality of time series of M, which is smaller than N, time data, respectively, having the time data length from the N reception data for each of the search areas; a phase information producing unit that produces phase information from the plurality of time series of M time data for each of the search areas; and a target detecting unit that determines a target distance from the vehicle to a target existing in one of the search areas and a target bearing of the target from the vehicle on the basis of the phase information of the search areas and detects the target from the target distance and the target bearing.