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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. EP 24160554, filed on March 01, 2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted complies with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 15 – 21, 24 – 29 and 32 – 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being obvious over Breen (US 20170090015 A1) in view of Meltzer (US 20220107385 A1).
NOTE: All citations are that of the primary reference unless otherwise specified.
As to claim 15 and 27, Breen discloses a radar device, comprising:
a plurality of receiver channels (Fig. 3 symbols showing low noise amplifiers LNA’s);
a plurality of mixers, wherein each of the receiver channels comprises one of said plurality of mixers (Fig. 3 shows mixers down stream LNA’s.);
a first frequency synthesizer configured to generate a chirp signal (Paras. 29 – 31 Fig. 3 item 230); and
at least one test tone generator configured to generate a test tone signal having a constant frequency (Para. 35 item 308),
wherein said plurality of mixers are configured to be fed with said chirp signal and with the test tone signal (Fig. 3 item 308 and item 230 and mixers).
Breen states that the test signal is based on the continuous signal. It is not clear to the Examiner whether the test signal is at a constant frequency. As such, it would be better to supply a secondary reference in order to expedite prosecution.
In the same field of endeavor, Meltzer teaches “However, in contrast to frequency-modulated radar signals that are transmitted and received during normal radar operation that comprise chirps (i.e., frequency ramps during which the frequency continuously changes), the RX monitoring signal during test mode or monitoring mode has a constant frequency (Para. 46).”
In view of the teachings of Meltzer, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before filing to apply a constant monitoring frequency in order to better identify interference thereby improving accuracy.
As to claim 16, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claim 15, further comprising at least one transmitter, wherein the test tone generator is coupled to the transmitter through a switch (Breen Fig. 3 item 310).
As to claim 17, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claim 15, wherein the test tone generator is coupled to the receiver channels through a built-in self-test, BIST, structure (Without more and/or specific structure being claimed, Breens electronic components that output item 310 meet the scope of the claimed language.).
As to claim 18, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claim 15, wherein the test tone generator is implemented as a second frequency synthesizer, wherein said second frequency synthesizer is embedded in a follower integrated circuit, IC, of the radar device (Para. 19 “FIG. 2 illustrates an example FMCW radar transceiver IC suitable for use as the master radar transceiver IC 102 and slave radar transceiver ICs 104 of FIG. 2, …”).
As to claim 19, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claim 15, wherein said receiver channels are distributed over multiple ICs, and wherein each of the ICs comprises a test tone generator coupled to the respective receiver channels of said ICs through a BIST structure of said ICs.
As to claim 20 and 28, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claim 15 and 27, further comprising a post-processing unit configured to derive time offsets between the receiver channels from digitized output signals provided by the mixers (Para. 16 phase delay. Para. 41 the DFE determines offset on each I & Q channel.).
Time delay = Phase delay =
4
π
R
λ
.
Proof: A transmitted signal is modelled as
y
T
t
=
a
cos
(
2
π
f
t
+
θ
)
and a roundtrip delay is given as
τ
=
2
R
c
(remove the “2” for single non-roundtrip) where c is the speed of light, which is the product of frequency f and wavelength
λ
. Insert delay and rearrange via algebra to yield the following received signal:
y
R
t
+
τ
=
a
cos
2
π
f
t
+
4
π
R
λ
+
θ
.
Note that the Examiner is interpreting the phase delay taught in Para. 16 of Breen to be between all channels. If Applicant disagrees, then Examiner takes official notice that it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled before filing to correct for delay among all channels to allow for accurate processing such as integration thus accurately improving signal-to-noise. Also, it is simpler to compare signals that are aligned wherein it is standard to align signals before applying any number of techniques such as integration, determining delay, determining angle, calibration, etc. Many technologies outside radar and including radar account for delays between channels thus official notice is appropriate. In fact, integration is a good example that would make it obvious even to those not skilled in the art to understand the necessity of aligning the signals between channels for processing.
As to claim 21 and 29, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claim 20 and 28, wherein the post-processing unit is configured to compute a set of fast Fourier transforms, FFTs, of said digitized output signals (Breen Para. 28. The DFE 222 is downstream ADC’s 218, 220).
As to claim 24 and 32, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claim 20 and 28, wherein the receiver channels comprise analog-to- digital converters configured to digitize the output signals provided by the mixers (Fig. 2 items 210, 212 coupled to 218, 220).
As to claim 25 and 33, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the radar device of claims 20 and 28, wherein the receiver channels comprise filters configured to filter the output signals provided by the mixers (Fig. 2 items 210, 212 coupled to items 214, 216).
As to claim 26, Breen in view of Meltzer teaches the vehicle comprising the radar device of claim 15 (Para. 23).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 22 – 23 and 30 – 31 are allowed.
Although correlation (time-domain) and multiplication (frequency-domain) are common signal processing means, the prior art does not teach “given pairs of the receiver channels” with respect to the other claimed features. See claims 22 and 30. Claims 30 and 31 depend from claims 22 and 30.
Conclusion
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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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William Kelleher can be reached at 571-272-7753. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648
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