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 .
Status of Claims
Amendments to claims 1, 9 and 16 have been entered.
Claims 1 – 20 are pending.
Response to Remarks
The Examiner agreed with Applicant that the two corrections in Roger’s Fig. 13 are iterative whereas the first and second imbalance vectors of the instant claims are used together to calibrate. See Examiner Interview summary 7/02/2026. However, and upon review of the claims, the claims do not actually require that the imbalance vectors be used to together.
Upon further searching, the Examiner found another reference Velazques (US 20110260898 A1). Velazques shows two mismatch estimators 100B and 100C as well as residual error 720 B and input 67 which could comprise a down-converted signal indicative of a target reflection and reference oscillation (actual signal) signal to remove a carrier for down conversion.
The Examiner emailed Applicant on 7/28/2026. Upon further review, the claims do not appear novel based on either the current reference because the claims do not actually require the imbalance vectors to be used together. Even if the claims did require the imbalance vectors to be used together, such feature would be taught by Velazques. See Velazques Fig. 11.
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.
Claim 1, 5 – 9, 12 – 16 and 19 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious by Roger (US 20210389420 A1) in view of Velazques (US 20110260898 A1).
As to claims 1, 9 and 16, Roger discloses radar device, comprising: one or more memories; and one or more processors, communicatively coupled to the one or more memories, configured to:
identify a peak in an integrated range-velocity map, the peak indicating one or more targets in the integrated range-velocity map and being associated with a range-velocity bin index (Fig. 5 step 507 see also Fig. 6);
extract, based on the range-velocity bin index associated with the peak, an actual signal vector from a plurality of range-velocity maps, wherein each range-velocity map in the plurality of range-velocity maps corresponds to a respective radar channel from a plurality of radar channels (Fig. 6);
determine an estimated target signal vector based on the actual signal vector and a first iteration estimated imbalance vector (Fig. 13 steps 1306 – 1307);
determine a second iteration estimated imbalance vector based on the actual signal vector, the estimated target signal vector, and an error vector (Para. 129 “For example, if the radar system's antenna array has a smaller coherent array (sub antenna array) for one or for a few of its MMICs, an error compensation vector may be computed and applied to correct a first single MMIC error and then by analyzing results on the entire MIMO array of the radar system to compute an apply a compensation vector on the entire antenna array.” See also Fig. 13 step 1305 and steps 1307 – 1309 see also Fig. 9); and
perform an action, associated with the plurality of radar channels, based on the second estimated imbalance vector (Para. 39 “autonomous driving”, Para. 107 “calibrate parameters” and Para. 183 “recalibrated”).
Rogers appears to teach only one of either phase or gain imbalance vector. See e.g. Roger Para. 190.
In the same field of endeavor, Valazquez teaches both phase and gain adjustments. See e.g., Valazquez Fig. 1.
In view of Valazquez, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing to apply adjustments to both phase and gain in order to improve overall accuracy of a signal because phase and gain are both important characteristics of a signal.
Also, during an interview, Applicant stated that the first and second imbalance vectors are used together to calibrate. Upon review of the claims, the Examiner does not see language in the claims that explicitly require that the first and second imbalance vectors be used together. Nonetheless, Valazquez shows an adaptive mismatch estimator item 200b updating both the mismatch equalizer 1 item 100b and mismatch equalizer 2 item 100c wherein the improvement is that both equalizers are being updated during operation, thus making the inputs to each more accurate thus improving overall accuracy.
As to claims 5 and 12, Roger in view of Valazquez teaches the radar device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors, to perform the action, are configured to perform an imbalance calibration, associated with the plurality of radar channels, based on the second iteration estimated imbalance vector (Fig. 13 steps 1309 – 1311).
As to claims 6 and 13, Roger in view of Valazquez teaches the radar device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors, to perform the action, are configured to: determine a phase imbalance associated with a radar channel from the plurality of radar channels based on the second estimated imbalance vector; and detect whether the phase imbalance associated with the radar channel satisfies a detection threshold (Para. 139 “In 1402, it is checked whether the angular error is above a threshold.”).
As to claims 7, 14 and 19, Roger in view of Valazquez teaches the radar device of claim 1, wherein the action comprises gain or phase monitoring associated with a set of transmit antennas of the radar device and a set of receive antennas of the radar device (Fig. 9).
As to claims 8, 15 and 20, Roger in view of Valazquez teaches the radar device of claim 1, wherein the extraction of the actual signal vector, the determination of the estimated target signal vector, the determination of the second estimated imbalance vector, and the performance of the action are executed irrespective of a quantity of targets indicated by the peak (Fig. 9 and Para. 129 “For example, if the radar system's antenna array has a smaller coherent array (sub antenna array) for one or for a few of its MMICs, an error compensation vector may be computed and applied to correct a first single MMIC error and then by analyzing results on the entire MIMO array of the radar system to compute an apply a compensation vector on the entire antenna array.”).
Claims 4, 11 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Roger in view of Valazquez (US 20210364622 A1).
As to claim 4, 11 and 18, Roger in view of Valazquez does not teach the radar device of claim 1, wherein the second estimated imbalance vector is determined using a least mean squares (LMS) technique.
The same inventor; hereinafter Roger ‘622, in a very similar application teaches “finding a preferable (improved, optimized or optimal) line by utilizing the least squares method, which indicates the phase shift between groups of samples (i.e. between samples of virtual antennas across different MMICs). (Para. 172).” Roger ‘622 further teaches “In the following, an approach for finding the error compensation vector based on least squares is described (Para. 275).” Roger ‘622 then goes on to describe LMS to optimize Fig. 9 (same Fig. 9 as Roger’s other application being primary application.) see Roger ‘622 Paras. 275 – 297.
In view of Roger ‘622, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to apply LMS to optimize phase correction thereby improving accuracy.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 – 3, 10 and 17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
As to claims 2, 10 and 17, the prior art does not teach the limitation radar device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors, to determine the estimated target signal vector, are configured to: calibrate the actual signal vector based on an inverse of the first estimated imbalance vector to determine a calibrated signal vector; and perform a parameter estimation based on the calibrated signal vector to determine the estimated target signal vector. The Examiner does not know of a reason to modify. Claim 3 depends from claim 2.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL W JUSTICE whose telephone number is (571)270-7029. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30 - 5:30 M-F.
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/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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