DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 USC 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 USC 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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(s) 1-3, 7, 9-12, and 16-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu (Radar-Assisted Predictive Beamforming for Vehicular Links: Communication Served by Sensing).
In regard to claim 1, Liu discloses:
predicting, according to state information of a historical data frame, a vehicle position in a curvilinear coordinate system at a moment corresponding to a target data frame (p. 7706, section IIA, ¶1-4; p. 7710, equation 41) [where the position must be expressed in a coordinate system, where the Office takes Official Notice that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found a curvilinear coordinate system to be a well known coordinate system before the effective filing date of the invention];
determining a beamforming vector according to the vehicle position (Fig. 1; p. 7705, col. 2, ¶2; p. 7706, section IIA, ¶4);
sending a beam based on the beamforming vector and receiving an echo (Fig. 1; p. 7705, col. 2, ¶2; p. 7706, section IIA, ¶4); and
determining state information of the target data frame based on an extended Kalman filtering algorithm and a measurement parameter of the echo, wherein the state information of the target data frame comprises a corrected vehicle position (Fig. 3; p. 7705, col. 2, ¶2; p. 7711, equation 45).
In regard to claim 9, Liu discloses the method as detailed in the rejection of claim 1, above, where the Office takes Official Notice that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it well known before the effective filing date of the invention to store the instructions for performing a vehicle tracking method in a memory and execute the instructions using one or more processors.
In regard to claim 10, Liu discloses the method as detailed in the rejection of claim 1, above, where the Office takes Official Notice that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it well known before the effective filing date of the invention to store the instructions for performing a vehicle tracking method in a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and execute the instructions using one or more processors.
In regard to claims 2, 11, and 17, Liu further discloses:
constructing a state transition model according to a vehicle position and a vehicle speed that are in the curvilinear coordinate system at a moment corresponding to the historical data frame (p. 7706, section IIA, ¶1-4; p. 7710, equation 41); and
inputting the state information of the historical data frame into the state transition model to obtain the vehicle position in the curvilinear coordinate system at the moment corresponding to the target data frame (p. 7711, equation 45).
In regard to claims 3, 12, and 18, Liu further discloses obtain angle prediction information of the vehicle position, and constructing the beamforming vector according to the angle prediction information (p. 7705, col. 2, ¶2; p. 7706, section IIA, ¶4).
With regard to "converting the vehicle position into a vehicle position in a Cartesian coordinate system and converting the vehicle position in the Cartesian coordinate system into a vehicle position in a polar coordinate system to obtain angle prediction information of the vehicle position, wherein the angle prediction information comprises an angle coordinate of the vehicle position in the polar coordinate system", expressing a value in different coordinate systems is just expressing the value in mathematically equivalent ways.
Based on Ex Parte Griesinger, BPAI Appeal 2007-2345, Mar 8, 2008, a reference is considered to teach not only what it states explicitly, but also what is mathematically equivalent to what it states: “[T]he Examiner’s use of mathematical equivalence per se to show anticipation appears to apply across all arts.”, p. 3, 3rd ¶.
In the event that Liu is not taken to be considered to teach these features, one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would have found it trivial to replace a mathematical representation with another mathematical representation that is mathematically equivalent to it.f ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to replace a mathematical operation with another mathematical opera
In regard to claims 7 and 16, Liu further discloses correcting, according to an observation model and the measurement parameter, the vehicle position based on the extended Kalman filtering algorithm to obtain the state information of the target data frame (section IIIA, particularly p. 7710, equation 32 and p. 7711, equation 45).
Claim(s) 4, 13, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu, as applied to claims 3, 12, and 18, above, and further in view of Eldar (US 2021/0064057 A1).
Liu fails to disclose acquiring position information of each reference point among a plurality of reference points in a road marking; selecting a plurality of control points from the road marking, wherein the plurality of control points are used for dividing the road marking into a plurality of control point ranges; for each reference point among the plurality of reference points, performing, based on a cubic spline interpolation method, interpolation in a control point range where a respective reference point is located; and fitting interpolation results corresponding to the plurality of reference points to obtain a curve of the road marking, and saving interpolation parameters.
Eldar teaches acquiring position information of each reference point among a plurality of reference points in a road marking; selecting a plurality of control points from the road marking, wherein the plurality of control points are used for dividing the road marking into a plurality of control point ranges; for each reference point among the plurality of reference points, performing, based on a cubic spline interpolation method, interpolation in a control point range where a respective reference point is located; and fitting interpolation results corresponding to the plurality of reference points to obtain a curve of the road marking, and saving interpolation parameters (¶305-306; ¶311; ¶361; ¶364).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include this feature into the combination with a reasonable expectation of success in order to provide more information from which to determine the vehicle's position in order to allow a more accurate position determination to be made.
Additionally, this is a combining of prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results, the predictable result being that the position of the vehicle is determined to a higher accuracy.
Claim(s) 6, 15, and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu, as applied to claims 1, 6, and 10, above, and further in view of Gupta (MUSIC and Improved MUSIC algorithm to Estimate Direction of Arrival).
Liu further discloses measuring the echo based on a matched filtering algorithm to obtain the measurement parameter, wherein the measurement parameter comprises an angle of arrival, a delay, and a Doppler shift (p. 7705, col. 2, ¶1-2; col. 7709, col. 2, ¶1).
Liu fails to disclose measuring the echo based on a multiple signal classification algorithm.
Gupta teaches measuring an angle of arrival based on the echo based on a multiple signal classification algorithm (p. 757, col. 2, ¶1; p. 758, section III, ¶2).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include this feature into the combination with a reasonable expectation of success in order to increase the accuracy of the angle of arrival measurement by averaging two independent measures of the angle of arrival.
Additionally, this is a combining of prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results, the predictable result being that are more accurate angle of arrival measurement is made.
The following reference(s) is/are also found relevant:
Meng (Vehicular Connectivity on Complex Trajectories: Roadway-Geometry Aware ISAC Beam-tracking), whose authorship shares the inventor Xiao Meng, and is thus not prior art.
Bersani (An integrated algorithm for ego-vehicle and obstacles state estimation for autonomous driving), which teaches coordinate conversion between a curvilinear coordinate system and a Cartesian coordinate system (Fig. 8).
Sadiku (Elements of Electromagnetics), which teaches (i) several curvilinear coordinate systems; (ii) that a considerable amount of work and time may be saved by choosing a coordinate system that best fits a given problem -- a hard problem in one coordinate system may tum out to be easy in another system; and (iii) concepts demonstrated in Cartesian coordinates are equally applicable to other systems of coordinates (p. 28, final two paragraphs).
Wymeersch (5G mm Wave Positioning for Vehicular Networks), which teaches vehicular positioning using lane markings based on distance, angle, and velocity measurements (p. 80; p. 82, final ¶) [where Wymeersch is cited by Liu as reference [1]).
Zhang (CN 112363167 A), which teaches extended target tracking method based on radar, converting the one-step prediction information of the target state from the Cartesian coordinate system to the polar coordinate system, and a Kalman filter for fusion filtering and realizing target state estimation and target tracking of multi-sensor information fusion (abstract).
Chen (US 2022/0128995 A1), which teaches using curvilinear coordinates in vehicle radar (¶33; ¶47).
McGill (US 2021/0380140 A1), which teaches using curvilinear coordinates in vehicle radar (¶4-6; ¶27).
The American Heritage Student Science Dictionary (polar coordinate system), which defines the term "polar coordinate system" in terms of distance and angle.
Drane (Positioning GSM Telephones), which teaches determining a position based on a distance and an angle (Fig. 1d).
Francis (US 8,175,851 B1), which teaches that it is known to fuse AOA estimates, including by averaging, where simple averaging of the AOA estimates lessens the effect of the erroneous results (col. 2, lines 34-40).
Squires (Practical Physics), which teaches that the mean/average value of measured values is taken to be the best value of the quantity (p. 12, ¶1).
Applicant is encouraged to consider these documents in formulating their response (if one is required) to this Office Action, in order to expedite prosecution of this application.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 5, 14, and 20 is/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.
Reasons for Allowance/Allowable Subject Matter
The following is an examiner's statement of reasons for allowance/allowable subject matter:
The references cited, alone or in combination, do not teach or make obvious the following limitation(s):
quoted from claim 5, in combination with the claim as a whole:
"determining an independent variable of an interpolation equation according to the control point range where the vehicle position is located, a length of a corresponding curve between a start point of the control point range and a projection of the vehicle position on the road marking, and the interpolation parameters; determining, according to the independent variable of the interpolation equation and the interpolation parameters, a road direction angle and a projection position of a vehicle on the road marking in the Cartesian coordinate system; determining the vehicle position in the Cartesian coordinate system according to the projection position and the road direction angle; and converting the vehicle position in the Cartesian coordinate system into the vehicle position in the polar coordinate system according to a positional relationship between a polar coordinate center and the curve of the road marking".
quoted from claim 14, in combination with the claim as a whole:
"determining an independent variable of an interpolation equation according to the control point range where the vehicle position is located, a length of a corresponding curve between a start point of the control point range and a projection of the vehicle position on the road marking, and the interpolation parameters; determining, according to the independent variable of the interpolation equation and the interpolation parameters, a road direction angle and a projection position of a vehicle on the road marking in the Cartesian coordinate system; determining the vehicle position in the Cartesian coordinate system according to the projection position and the road direction angle; and converting the vehicle position in the Cartesian coordinate system into the vehicle position in the polar coordinate system according to a positional relationship between a polar coordinate center and the curve of the road marking".
quoted from claim 20, in combination with the claim as a whole:
"determining an independent variable of an interpolation equation according to the control point range where the vehicle position is located, a length of a corresponding curve between a start point of the control point range and a projection of the vehicle position on the road marking, and the interpolation parameters; determining, according to the independent variable of the interpolation equation and the interpolation parameters, a road direction angle and a projection position of a vehicle on the road marking in the Cartesian coordinate system; determining the vehicle position in the Cartesian coordinate system according to the projection position and the road direction angle; and converting the vehicle position in the Cartesian coordinate system into the vehicle position in the polar coordinate system according to a positional relationship between a polar coordinate center and the curve of the road marking".
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled "Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance".
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Fred H. Mull whose telephone number is 571-272-6975. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday from approximately 9-5:30 Eastern Time.
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Fred H. Mull
Examiner
Art Unit 3648
/F. H. M./
Examiner, Art Unit 3648
/BERNARR E GREGORY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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