DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
This application claims the benefit of the filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 63/145,222 filed on February 3rd, 2021, U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 63/155,110 filed on March 1st, 2021, U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 63/229,345 filed on August 4, 2021, and U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 63/239,077 filed on August 31, 2021.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 4/07/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
Amendments to claims 1, 10 and 18 have been entered.
Claims 1 – 2 and 5 – 20 are pending.
Response to Remarks
In order to have coherent phase, mixing of aligned signals is necessary. Nonetheless, the Examiner will include an additional reference(s) in order to expedite prosecution. The Examiner has modified the rejection in view of Remarks and allowed claims 18 – 20.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 4 – 6, 8 – 13, and 15 – 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Amizur (US 20220365168 A1) with effective date Sep. 25, 2020 in view of Kan (US 20220094388 A1) having effective filing Oct. 10, 2020 in further view of Seller (US 20160003940 A1) for claims 1 and 4 – 9 or Seller (US 9577702 B2) for claims 10 – 17.
As to claim 1, 10 and 15 (claims 10 and 18 are broader in scope than claim 1), Amizur discloses a method for providing communications using frequency-modulated continuous- wave radar between two devices that are in each other's sensing field of view (The communication between devices is evidence of the devices being in each other’s field-of-view, FOV - inherent.) and are able to receive one another's transmitted signals, the method comprising:
determining, by a first device using frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar, a direction vector to a source of a second device's transmitted signal using an array of two or more receive antennas by calculating an angle of arrival (Fig. 1 item 102 Para. 40 and Para. 56 ToA. It is conventional for automotive radars to use chirp waveforms because chirp waveforms have larger bandwidth thus improved resolution which is considered important/necessary in a crowded environment.);
determining, by the first device, a distance to the second device based on the transmitted signal (Para. 56 spatial information and position);
setting up a communications channel between the first device and second device (Fig. 4),
the communications channel using a plurality of chirp signals, wherein at least two chirp signals of the plurality of chirp signals differ from one another comprising one or more of a chirp rate, a frequency range, a phase, an amplitude, or a ramp rate (Not taught.); and
communicating, by the first device, at least the determined direction vector and distance to the second device (Para. 56 and Fig. 4).
Amir discloses V2X. see Amir Para. 51. As such, there is a need to effectively communicate data.
In the same field of endeavor, Kan teaches “Chirp modulation was applied to communications in 1962. It expresses modulation information at different chirp rates within the same signal symbol period. This technology is mainly applied to sonar and radar. In this case, for a successful measurement of a long-distance and time-retention resolution, the radar needs short-term pulse waves and continuous transmission of signals, and the chirp modulation can retain characteristics of the continuous signals and the pulses. Radar positioning technology can increase the RF pulse width, increase the communication distance, increase the average transmission power, and keep enough signal spectrum width without reducing the range resolution of the radar. (Para. 3).”
In view of the teachings of Kan, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to apply communicate via different chirp rates in order to increase communication distance, average transmit power and improve resolution thereby improving overall communication. Kan also teaches binary modulation (claim 15). See Kan Para. 2. The advantage of binary is its simplicity and easy to implement.
Regarding claims 1 – 2 and 5 – 9, Amizur in view of Kan does not teach the feature wherein determining the distance comprises adjusting a transmit ramp signal of the first device to align a start of a chirp transmission from the first device to a start of a received chirp from the second device.
One of ordinary skill understands that the signal must be aligned in order to accurately determine distance because there has to be a reference starting point.
In the same field of endeavor, Seller ‘940 teaches “The ranging request is received by the targeted device ‘B’ that demodulates the requests, verifies that its own Identification code corresponds to the ID code in the ranging request, computes the frequency drift and offset of its own time reference relative to the clock of the transmitting device ‘A’ based on the time and frequency of chirps contained in the ranging request, wait for a predetermined time interval, and sends back a ranging reply 545 to device ‘A’ that containing chirps that are aligned in time and frequency with the time reference of ‘A’ (Para. 87).”
In view of the teachings of Seller ‘940, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing to align the transmit and receive signals in order to correctly determine solutions such as range, phase, velocity, etc. thereby improving accuracy.
Regarding claims 10 – 17, Amizur in view of Kan does not teach the feature “wherein the two devices are configured to communicate with each other by shifting a transmit frequency sweep range by an amount corresponding to a measured intermediate frequency, the shift being detectable by a receiving device as a change in an intermediate frequency.”
In the same field of endeavor, Seller ‘702 teaches “the structure of the signal described above allows the demodulator unit 180 in the receiver to align its time references with that of the transmitter, and the determination of the amount of cyclical shift imparted to each chirp. The operation of evaluating a time shift of a received chirp with respect to a local time reference may be referred to in the following as “dechirping”, and can be carried out advantageously by multiplying the received chirp by a complex conjugate of a locally-generated base chirp, and performing a FFT (col. 4 ll. 30 – 36).” The “determination of the amount of cyclical shift imparted to each chirp” would be part of the IF signal because it is output of demodulator 180.
In view of the teachings of Seller ‘702, it would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing to determine chirp offsets which would allow for chirp multiplexing that would result in less interference among the chirps thereby improving accuracy. The cited portion of Seller ‘702 also includes the claimed alignment but it appears Seller ‘702 is a single device that transmits and receives whereas Seller ‘940 cited passage is directed to two transmitting devices. Either way, the signal processing is the same regardless if single device versus two devices.
All of the secondary references cited for the independent claims teach chirps (ramps) throughout and the signal processing of the cited passages are with respect to the chirps. The advantage of chirps is compressed bandwidth resulting in improved overall range resolution without detracting from Doppler resolution.
As to claim 4, Amizur in view of Kan in view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein determining the distance comprises: adjusting ramp signals of each transmit phase of the first device to align a start of the first device's chirp transmission to a start of a chirp the first device received (Amizur: Para. 23 “mixed-signal circuit”. One of ordinary skill knows that downconverting requires that the reference transmit and received signals to be aligned.).
As to claim 5, Amizur in view of Kan in view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first device comprises at least one transmit antenna, the array of two or more receive antennas, and a processing unit (Amizur: Fig. 1 item 102 and Fig. 2 items 209 and 215).
As to claims 6 and 17, Amizur in view of Kan discloses the method of claim 1, wherein setting up the communications channel comprises using phase modulation of the different chirp signals, wherein each device may transmit a sequence of phase-modulated chirps within a frame, with one phase modulated chirp of the sequence of phase-modulated chirps contains a reference phase so that the difference in a phase between each chirp and the reference phase indicates data being sent (Kan Para. 6 “m-ary phase modulation” wherein the motivation would be noise immunity, increased bandwidth and power efficiency.).
As to claim 8 and 16, Amizur in view of Kan in view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 teaches the method of claim 1, 10 and 18 further comprising: receiving, by the first device, the second device, or the first device and second device a respective transmitted signal from a third device; wherein the first device and second device are able to identify that they are communicating with one another and not the third device based on the communicating (Amizur Para. 68 broadcasting to any suitable device and Fig. 4 shows ID).
As to claim 9, Amizur in view of Kan in view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: using the communications channel by one of the first and second devices to communicate data from the one of the first and second devices to the other of the first and second devices, the data comprising at least one of identifying information, operating parameters, sensor readings, or environmental data (Fig. 4).
As to claim 11, Amizur in view of Kan in view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 teaches the system of claim 10, wherein the two devices are further configured to determine a direction vector to a source of another device's transmitted signal using an array of two or more receive antennas (as cited in claim 1).
As to claim 12, Amizur in view of Kan in view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 teaches the system of claim 10, wherein the two devices are further configured to determine a distance to its opposite using the frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar (Amizur: ToA as cited in claim one allows for the distance and bearing to an opposite device).
As to claim 13, Amizur in view of Kan in view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 teaches the system of claim 10, wherein each device of the two devices comprises at least one radar module in communication with a processing unit (Amizur Fig. 2 items 204 and 209).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Amizur in view of Kan in further view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 and in further view of Achour (US 20190326684 A1).
As to claim 2, Amizur in view of Kan and Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘740 does not teach but Achour, in the same field of endeavor, teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the two or more receive antennas are arranged in a grid with wavelength center-to-center separation (Achour Para. 37 “As illustrated, the radiating array structure 126 is an array of unit cell elements (e.g., an 8×16 array), wherein each of the unit cell elements has a uniform size and shape; however, some examples may incorporate different sizes, shapes, configurations and array sizes.” See also Fig. 1. And, Para. 48 “The distances between the radiating structures can be much lower than half the wavelength of the radiating frequency of the transmission signal.”).
In view of Amizur, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to apply the antenna array structure of Amizur’s Fig. 1 item 132 in order to improve spatial resolution in more than one direction as well as apply ½ wavelength distance or smaller between antenna units 132 in order to prevent grating lobes as known in the art to reduce ambiguities as to whether an object is detected line-of-sight thereby improving accurate measurements.
Claims 6 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Amizur in view of Kan in further view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 and in further view of Agrawal (US 20220200642 A1).
As to claims 6 and 17, Amizur in view of Kan in further view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 does not teach but Agrawal, in the same field of endeavor, teaches the method of claim 1, wherein setting up the communications channel comprises using phase modulation of the different chirp signals, wherein each device may transmit a sequence of phase-modulated chirps within a frame, with one phase modulated chirp of the sequence of phase-modulated chirps contains a reference phase so that the difference in a phase between each chirp and the reference phase indicates data being sent (Agrawal Para. 437 “The data to be transmitted is modulated to a communication signal according to the phase difference related to the reference signal. Therefore, a demodulator identifies the phase difference of the received communication signal related to the reference signal in order to obtain the data.”).
In view of Agrawal, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to use a reference bit when apply phase coding/modulation in order to properly decode the conveyed information thereby achieving accurate information.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Amizur in view of Kan in further view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 and Perkins and in further view of Ray (US 20200309933 A1).
As to claim 7, Amizur in view of Kan in further view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 and Perkins does not teach but Ray, in the same field of endeavor, teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the phase may be controlled with different resolution to change an amount of data sent with each chirp (Ray Para. 66 “Each frequency band has its own symbol times, chirp slopes and phases within an overall range of frequencies having a total bandwidth B.sub.T that represent all the radar and communications systems that are currently operating.” Wherein bandwidth corresponds to resolution.).
In view of the teachings of Ray, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing to modify the phase in order to achieve the desired resolution thereby allowing for improved accuracy.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Amizur in view of Kan in further view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 and Perkins and in further view of Lacaze (US 20200180924 A1).
As to claim 14, Amizur in view of Kan in further view of Seller ‘940 or Seller ‘702 does not teach but Lacaze teaches the system of claim 10, wherein at least one of the two devices is coupled with a combine hopper, auger, grain cart, seed tender, grain truck, grain bin, or gravel truck (Lacaze Paras. 12 and 56).
In view of the teachings of Lacaze, it would have been predictably obvious to apply a radar and/or communication device, e.g. beacon, to a truck with a hopper because it is well known that attaching radar, communication and other devices to vehicles, e.g., newer vehicles, improve sales of said vehicles because there is a demand for such evidenced by the fact that newer vehicles today and recent years have said devices thus the motivation would be commercial success as well as improved safety because said devices also improve safety by preventing or at least assisting in reducing the risk of accidents.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 18 – 20 are allowed.
The prior art does not teach the newly added feature of claim 18 in addition to all the other claimed features.
Conclusion
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/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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