DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the initial filing filed on December 19, 2024, Claims 1-20 have been examined this application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) filed on 6/2/2026 has been acknowledged.
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 .
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.
Claims 1-5, 8-12, and 15-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alland et al (US 2009/0085800 A1) in view of Akoum et al (US 2023/0344483 A1) and Cavalcante et al (US 2019/0393945 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Alland teaches an apparatus, comprising [0018 for having a radar system]:
interface circuitry configured to receive radio unit data [0018 0026];
and processing circuitry configured to perform radar sensing processing on the received radio unit data to determine at least one of range, velocity, or direction of at least one target in an environment [0018 for having a radar transceiver (receiving data) with processor and antennas, and 0038 for objects in vehicle path (range velocity direction)],
wherein the radar sensing processing includes range processing, Doppler processing, two-dimensional range-Doppler periodogram processing [0026 for using range bins, Doppler processing and FFTs with 0030],
constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection processing, angular resolution processing, and post processing [0026 for non-coherently integrates i.e., sums the amplitude of the range-Doppler bins across each receive antenna and 0030 for beam forming (angular), 0038].
Alland fails to explicitly teach wherein the radio unit data comprises beam domain data.
Akoum has a system comprising a distributed unit configured to generate sounding reference signal-based beams, and a remote unit communicatively coupled with the DU over a fronthaul (abstract) and teaches wherein the radio unit data comprises beam domain data [0068-0071 for the RU may employ one or more beamspace compression algorithms].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace calculations as taught by Akoum for the purpose to utilize presently received SRS channel estimates and/or historical SRS channel estimates to generate beams (Akoum, 0070).
Alland fails to explicitly teach and the processing circuitry is further configured to perform decompression processing for converting the beam domain data to antenna domain data and perform at least the angular resolution processing and the post processing on the antenna domain data.
Cavalcante has a method for compressing beamspace coefficients to be applied when transferring data between a radio network node and a specific user device (abstract) and teaches and the processing circuitry is further configured to perform decompression processing for converting the beam domain data to antenna domain data and perform at least the angular resolution processing and the post processing on the antenna domain data [0099-0100 for coefficient decoder transforms the beamspace coefficients into antenna element space using an inverse spatial transform].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace coefficient calculations as taught by Cavalcante for the purpose to improves accuracy but reduces compression (Cavalcante, 0100).
Regarding Claim 8, Alland teaches a method for radar sensing in a disaggregated radio access network, comprising [0018 for having a radar system]:
receiving radio unit data [0018 for having a radar transceiver (receiving data) with processor and antennas, and 0038 for objects in vehicle path];
and performing radar sensing processing on the received radio unit data to determine at least one of range, velocity, or direction of at least one target in an environment [0018 for having a radar transceiver (receiving data) with processor and antennas, and 0038 for objects in vehicle path (range velocity direction)],
wherein the radar sensing processing includes range processing, Doppler processing, two-dimensional range-Doppler periodogram processing [0026 for using range bins, Doppler processing and FFTs with 0030],
constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection processing, angular resolution processing, and post processing [0026 for non-coherently integrates i.e., sums the amplitude of the range-Doppler bins across each receive antenna and 0030 for beam forming (angular), 0038].
Alland fails to explicitly teach wherein the radio unit data is beam domain data.
Akoum has a system comprising a distributed unit configured to generate sounding reference signal-based beams, and a remote unit communicatively coupled with the DU over a fronthaul (abstract) and teaches wherein the radio unit data comprises beam domain data [0068-0071 for the RU may employ one or more beamspace compression algorithms].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace calculations as taught by Akoum for the purpose to utilize presently received SRS channel estimates and/or historical SRS channel estimates to generate beams (Akoum, 0070).
Alland fails to explicitly teach and the processing circuitry is further configured to perform decompression processing for converting the beam domain data to antenna domain data and perform at least the angular resolution processing and the post processing on the antenna domain data.
Cavalcante has a method for compressing beamspace coefficients to be applied when transferring data between a radio network node and a specific user device (abstract) and teaches wherein the radar sensing processing further includes performing decompression processing for converting the beam domain data to antenna domain data, and at least the angular resolution processing and the post processing are performed on the antenna domain data [0099-0100 for coefficient decoder transforms the beamspace coefficients into antenna element space using an inverse spatial transform].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace coefficient calculations as taught by Cavalcante for the purpose to improves accuracy but reduces compression (Cavalcante, 0100).
Regarding Claim 15, Alland teaches a machine-readable medium including code, when executed, to cause a machine to [0018 for having a radar system, 0026]:
receive radio unit data [0018 for having a radar transceiver (receiving data) with processor and antennas, and 0038 for objects in vehicle path];
and perform radar sensing processing on the received radio unit data to determine at least one of range, velocity, or direction of at least one target in an environment [0018 for having a radar transceiver (receiving data) with processor and antennas, and 0038 for objects in vehicle path (range velocity direction)],
wherein the radar sensing processing includes range processing, Doppler processing, two-dimensional range-Doppler periodogram processing [0026 for using range bins, Doppler processing and FFTs with 0030],
constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection processing, angular resolution processing, and post processing [0026 for non-coherently integrates i.e., sums the amplitude of the range-Doppler bins across each receive antenna and 0030 for beam forming (angular), 0038].
Alland fails to explicitly teach wherein the radio unit data is beam domain data.
Akoum has a system comprising a distributed unit configured to generate sounding reference signal-based beams, and a remote unit communicatively coupled with the DU over a fronthaul (abstract) and teaches wherein the radio unit data comprises beam domain data [0068-0071 for the RU may employ one or more beamspace compression algorithms].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace calculations as taught by Akoum for the purpose to utilize presently received SRS channel estimates and/or historical SRS channel estimates to generate beams (Akoum, 0070).
Alland fails to explicitly teach and the processing circuitry is further configured to perform decompression processing for converting the beam domain data to antenna domain data and perform at least the angular resolution processing and the post processing on the antenna domain data.
Cavalcante has a method for compressing beamspace coefficients to be applied when transferring data between a radio network node and a specific user device (abstract) and teaches wherein the radar sensing processing further includes performing decompression processing for converting the beam domain data to antenna domain data, and at least the angular resolution processing and the post processing are performed on the antenna domain data [0099-0100 for coefficient decoder transforms the beamspace coefficients into antenna element space using an inverse spatial transform].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace coefficient calculations as taught by Cavalcante for the purpose to improves accuracy but reduces compression (Cavalcante, 0100).
Regarding Claim 2, 9, and 16, Alland teaches the processing circuitry is configured to perform the decompression processing after the CFAR detection processing [claim 9 for processor non-coherently integrates said range-Doppler bins and performs detection substantially prior to digital beamforming].
Regarding Claim 3, 10, and 17, Alland teaches the processing circuitry is configured to perform the angular resolution processing on selected peak bins data of a range-Doppler periodogram [claim 9 for transformation into angle bins is substantially limited to said range-Doppler bins with detections].
Regarding Claim 4 and 11, Alland fails to explicitly teach the processing circuitry is configured to perform the decompression processing and the angle resolution processing using a machine learning model.
Akoum has a system comprising a distributed unit configured to generate sounding (abstract) and teaches the processing circuitry is configured to perform the decompression processing and the angle resolution processing using a machine learning model [0054 for machine learning and 0071 for using decompression algorithms].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace calculations as taught by Akoum for the purpose to utilize presently received SRS channel estimates and/or historical SRS channel estimates to generate beams (Akoum, 0070).
Regarding Claim 5, 12, and 18, Alland fails to explicitly teach the processing circuitry is configured to perform the decompression processing before the range processing and perform the radar sensing processing on the antenna domain data.
Cavalcante has a method for compressing beamspace coefficients to be applied when transferring data between a radio network node and a specific user device (abstract) and teaches the processing circuitry is configured to perform the decompression processing before the range processing and perform the radar sensing processing on the antenna domain data [0099-0100 for coefficient decoder transforms the beamspace coefficients into antenna element space using an inverse spatial transform].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the beamspace coefficient calculations as taught by Cavalcante for the purpose to improves accuracy but reduces compression (Cavalcante, 0100).
Claims 6-7, 13-14, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alland et al (US 2009/0085800 A1) in view of Akoum et al (US 2023/0344483 A1) and Cavalcante et al (US 2019/0393945 A1), as applied to Claims 1, 8, and 15 above, and further in view of Shatov et al (IEEE Access, 2024).
Regarding Claim 6, 13, and 19 Alland fails to explicitly teach the radio unit data is comprised of orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) demodulated data and the processing circuitry is configured to perform subcarrier equalization on the OFDM demodulated data.
Shatov has joint radar communication for object detection (abstract) and teaches the radio unit data is comprised of orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) demodulated data and the processing circuitry is configured to perform subcarrier equalization on the OFDM demodulated data [page 47901, left column, 2nd paragraph for received signal is transformed back to the frequency domain using the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and the signal can be equalized efficiently using a one-tap equalizer].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the OFDM calculations as taught by Shatov for the purpose to to operate the power amplifier in saturation and to maximize the image SNR (Shatov, page 47901, left column, 2nd paragraph).
Regarding Claim 7, 14, and 20 Alland fails to explicitly teach the processing circuitry is configured to perform the angular resolution processing using Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) or Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance Techniques (ESPRIT) algorithm.
Shatov has joint radar communication for object detection (abstract) and teaches the processing circuitry is configured to perform the angular resolution processing using Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) or Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance Techniques (ESPRIT) algorithm [page 47903, right column, 5th paragraph for using signal classification such as MUSIC].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the applicant’s invention for modifying the radar position techniques, as disclosed by Alland, further including the OFDM calculations as taught by Shatov for the purpose to to operate the power amplifier in saturation and to maximize the image SNR (Shatov, page 47901, left column, 2nd paragraph).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ahmed et al (US 2021/0273704 A1) has a method of enabling an Open RAN-compatible radio unit to apply different beamforming weights to different physical resource blocks.
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/SAMARINA MAKHDOOM/
Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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