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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 4/27/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
Amendments to claims 1, 5 – 7, 11 and 15 – 17 have been entered.
Claims 4 and 14 are cancelled.
Claims 1 – 3, 5 – 13 and 15 – 20 are currently amended.
Response to Remarks
In view of amendment and remarks, a new secondary reference has been found.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or non-obviousness.
Claims 1, 3, 5 – 7, 9, 13, 15 – 17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Nam (US 20230305103 A1) in view of Park (US 20210333386 A1) and Liu (US 20160204840 A1).
As to claims 1 and 11, Nam discloses a radar system comprising: a plurality of transmitter groups (Nam Para. 88 “For high resolution radars, e.g., a combination of N.sub.Tx=3 Tx channels and N.sub.Rx=16 Rx channels would be conceivable, leading to a virtual array of 48 antenna elements.” As such, Nam suggests different groupings of transmit antennae may be used, hence meeting the broad scope of transmitter groups.),
each comprising a plurality of transmitter modules (Module is a broad generic term, e.g. wildcard, so module could be narrowly interpreted as a transmitter or broadly interpreted to include any device, e.g. amplifier, associated with a transmitter.),
configured to transmit a plurality of transmit signals in accordance with a (Paras. 23 – 24 and 88. It would be obvious to use both RTDM and DDM schemes to reduce interference and improve resolution, respectively.);
a plurality of receiver modules configured to receive reflections of the plurality of transmit signals reflected by at least one object and to generate digital signals based on the received reflections (Para. 74 and Fig. 1 item 114); and
a controller comprising: a signal processor (Fig. 1 items 120 – 180) configured to:
generate a plurality of range-Doppler antenna cubes (RDACs) based on the reflections of the plurality of transmit signals, each of the plurality of RDACs corresponding to a respective transmitter group of the plurality of transmitter groups (Para. 21 “The receiver circuit may be further configured to combine the first and the second bins to obtain, (per receive channel) a combined range-Doppler-map for the plurality of transmit channels.”);
generate a combined range-Doppler map (RDM) by integrating the plurality of RDACs; and generate object position data based on the combined RDM (Para. 92 “If more than one Rx channel is used, a probability of detection can be enhanced by summing or integrating the 2D range-Doppler map data of all Rx channels.”).
Nam does not teach separate range-doppler maps corresponding different subset of transmit antennae.
In the same a field of endeavor, Park teaches “If it is assumed that transmitter circuitry 610 comprises N.sub.T Tx channels, the N.sub.T Tx channels can, for example, be subdivided into N.sub.TDM (≥2) disjoint subsets of Tx channels, each subset comprising N.sub.CDM (≥2) Tx channels. In the example illustrated in FIG. 7, each subset comprises N.sub.CDM=2 Tx channels. The subsets of the Tx channels may also be referred to as CDM subsets. Although FIG. 7 illustrates an identical number of N.sub.CDM Tx channels for each CDM subset, the skilled person having benefit from the present disclosure will appreciate that the different CDM subsets do not necessarily have to comprise an equal number of Tx channels. (Para. 68).”
Park further teaches “With the results obtained so far, a coarse angle calculation 918 can be performed. In order to estimate a coarse angle (θ.sub.coarse) of one or more targets, NCI results from different CDM subsets may be used. For every Rx channel, CDM synthesis 916-1 has provided N.sub.CDM range Doppler maps for each of the N.sub.TDM CDM subsets. Thus, after CDM synthesis 916-1, we have N.sub.TDM virtual arrays, each virtual array having N.sub.CDM×N.sub.R elements. Thus, coarse angle calculation 918 can be performed by DoA processing over each of the N.sub.TDM virtual arrays separately. DoA processing can be done by performing a 3.sup.rd FFT (angular FFT) across all antennas of a virtual array. Here, phase information of the detected peaks in the range-Doppler maps is used. Thus, receiver circuitry 620 may be further configured to determine a first (coarse) angular spectrum associated with selected first range-Doppler bins which are associated with the first CDM subset of Tx channels by performing DoA processing (angular FFT) of the selected first range-Doppler bins along a synthesized first virtual receive channel domain (Para. 29).”
In view of the teachings of Park, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to apply the coarse angle measurements via non-coherent integration of range-doppler maps corresponding to different transmitter subsets to reduce the amount of processing as compared to determining range using all of the transmitter groups at a time, thus one of ordinary skill would be motivated to systems with several antenna to reduce processing load at a time and reducing the risk of processing overload.
The combination of prior art thus far does not teach that the TDM of Nam is random. See Nam Para. 63.
In the same field of endeavor, Liu teaches “the subset of transmit antennas and receive antennas are randomly selected. This random selection provides more degrees of freedom in MIMO data collection with improved imaging performance (Para. 11).” Liu further teaches “The randomness ensures that the linear measurements are incoherent and fully capture the scene information (Para. 12).”
In view of the teachings of Liu, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to randomly choose different transmit antenna groups in order to reduce interference, e.g., jamming, as well as hacking thereby improving security. Choosing different groups also creates a larger synthetic aperture that improves signal-to-noise thus accuracy as well as providing for more coverage. As discussed by Liu as cited, such advantages include improved image quality.
As to claims 3 and 13, Nam in view of Park and Liu teaches the radar system of claim 1 and 11, wherein the signal processor, to generate the combined RDM by integrating the plurality of RDACs, is further configured to generate the combined RDM by non-coherently integrating the plurality of RDACs (Para. 92).
As to claims 5 and 15, Nam in view of Park and Liu teaches the radar system of claims 4 and 14, wherein the controller is further configured to: select each transmitter group of the plurality of transmitter groups for transmission in a total of K/m transmission periods of the radar transmission frame, where K is the total number of transmission periods in the radar transmission frame and m is the total number of transmitter groups of the plurality of transmitter groups (As modified by Liu suggests that the time division multiplexing of Nam Para. 63 is random.).
As to claims 6 and 16, Nam in view of Park and Liu teaches the radar system of claims 4 and 14, wherein the controller is further configured to: in a first transmission period of the radar transmission frame, randomly select a first transmitter group of the plurality of transmitter groups for transmission; and in a second transmission period of the radar transmission frame, randomly select a second transmitter group of the plurality of transmitter groups for transmission, wherein the second transmitter group is inactive during the first transmission period and the first transmitter group is inactive during the second transmission period (As suggested with the Modification of Nam’s time division multiplexing TDM with Liu. TDM groups imply each group is randomly selected for a transmission period.).
As to claims 7 and 17, Nam in view of Park and Liu teaches the radar system of claim 4 and 14, wherein each transmitter module of the pluralities of transmitter modules of the plurality of transmitter groups includes a phase rotator configured to apply a phase shift to transmit signals generated by that transmitter module based on a predefined DDM code (Nam Fig. 7A).
As to claims 9 and 19, Nam in view of Park and Liu teaches the radar system of claim 7 and 17, wherein, for a given transmitter module of the plurality of transmitter modules, the phase rotator of the given transmitter is configured to apply the phase shift to a given transmit signal, based on: an index of the given transmitter module with respect to a transmitter group of the plurality of transmitter groups, and a transmission period of a radar transmission frame in which the given transmit signal is to be transmitted (Nam Paras. 36 and 72 DDMA and CDMA. This implies the different groups would have different offsets.).
Claims 2 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Nam in view of Park and Liu and in further view of Cattle (US 20200158861 A1).
As to claims 2 and 12, Nam in view of Park and Liu does not teach the radar system of claim 1, wherein the signal processor, to generate the plurality of RDACs, is further configured to: generate a first RDAC by performing range compression and Doppler compression on raw analog-to-digital converter (ADC) data representing first reflections associated with first transmit signals of a first transmitter group of the plurality of transmitter groups; and generate a second RDAC by performing range compression and Doppler compression on raw ADC data representing second reflections associated with second transmit signals of a second transmitter group of the plurality of transmitter groups.
In the same field of endeavor, Cattle teaches “FIG. 2E shows conceptual representations of a process for radar imaging that may be implemented by the imaging module 316. Spatial data, fast time data, and slow time data may be compressed and calibrated. A Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) may be provided over fast time values (Para. 18).”
The Examiner acknowledges that compression for transmission and interpolation for reception is a common technique used to reduce the amount of data that travels wirelessly thus reducing download time.
In view of the teachings of Cattle, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled to compress data along all relevant dimensions in order to reduce the amount of data for compression in order to reduce download time thus making download more efficient and less prone to error.
Claims 8 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Nam in view of Park and Liu and in further view of Wu (US 20220171049 A1).
As to claims 8 and 18, Nam in view of Park and Liu does not teach the radar system of claim 7 and 17, wherein the predefined DDM code causes the phase rotator to apply the phase shift progressively in accordance with a co-prime coded (CPC) coding technique.
In the same field of endeavor, Wu teaches “FIG. 5 is a timing diagram illustrating a linear chirp transmission schedule for a DDM MIMO radar system using a non-uniform Doppler division scheme which employs a co-prime coding in accordance with selected embodiments of the present disclosure (Para. 10).”
In view of the teachings of Wu, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to apply the coding technique as taught by Wu in order to improve resolution thereby improving accuracy.
Claims 10 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Nam in view of Park and Liu and in further view of Wu (US 20200300995 A1).
As to claims 10 and 20, Nam in view of Park and Liu does not teach the radar system of claim 1, wherein the signal processor is further configured to reduce sidelobe amplitudes of the combined RDM using coherent cancellation.
In the same field of endeavor, Wu ‘995 teaches “While the difference co-array processing techniques disclosed hereinabove improve the angular resolution and reduce the spurious side lobes, there may be additional need for suppressing the spurious side lobes. To this end, the co-array processing module 39 may be configured to further reduce the spurious side lobes by spatially smoothing the forward/backward difference co-array element outputs in the forward direction. As will be appreciated, spatial smoothing is a technique used in array signal covariance matrix construction for the purpose of increasing the matrix rank as well as decorrelating coherent signals (Para. 70).”
In view of the teachings of Wu ‘995, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled to apply coherent decorrelation in addition to the virtual arrays taught by the prior art to mitigate spurious side-lobes thereby improving signal-to-noise thus improved accuracy.
Conclusion
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/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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