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TACC Tuning?

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Whoah! That's very interesting! Any idea how this is done? Is the transmitter horn/dish actually moving back and forth or is there some sort of arrangement of antennas utilizing diversity in some form? You say 'electronically steerable' so I doubt there is anything physically moving.

I saw something today that makes me wonder about this. I caught up to a black dually Chev in some corners along a lake, against a rock cut. I saw the TACC icon lock on and my speed started to reduce. Then the truck drove into a dense shadow and it sort of got lost for a moment against the dark rock, the truck being black and all. The TACC icon disappeared for a moment and the car surged ahead... then the lock was regained and I slowed down again. This all happened in the space of a couple of seconds.

The corners aren't tight enough to lose coverage of the vehicle ahead - at least, it hasn't happened before and I drive this highway regularly. It made me wonder if the camera had been involved with the radar and hadn't adjusted exposure for the shadow quickly enough to retain its visual lock (like my eyes!). However, if the radar is sensitive to direction, perhaps there was some confusion about which way I was going relative to the truck... having only just locked on before unlocking.

It's super-interesting stuff and I wish the average Joe (or pedantic SOB's like myself) could be given access to the finer details of the programming logic (not the code itself), because these sorts of clunks are probably quite explainable with better understanding of the system.

I don't know how much we know about Tesla's radar, but most serious modern radars are Phased Array - including the Delphi automotive unit that I suspect Tesla may be using.

A Phased Array radar has a transmitter/receiver that's made up of a whole bunch of little transmitters/receivers. By starting one edge of the array transmitting before the rest and rippling the signal across the array, you cause the strong part of the beam to head off in the direction of the side you started on - and how fast the ripple proceeds determines how far off to the sides the signal goes. If you assemble a similar sequence of received data, you again get a directional effect.

This is the core technology behind 1970s Ticonderoga/Aegis missile defense cruisers, and it's been moving into more of the market over the years.
 
I don't know how much we know about Tesla's radar, but most serious modern radars are Phased Array - including the Delphi automotive unit that I suspect Tesla may be using.

A Phased Array radar has a transmitter/receiver that's made up of a whole bunch of little transmitters/receivers. By starting one edge of the array transmitting before the rest and rippling the signal across the array, you cause the strong part of the beam to head off in the direction of the side you started on - and how fast the ripple proceeds determines how far off to the sides the signal goes. If you assemble a similar sequence of received data, you again get a directional effect.

This is the core technology behind 1970s Ticonderoga/Aegis missile defense cruisers, and it's been moving into more of the market over the years.
So essentially, THIS.

Cool. :smile:
 
FYI: On the 2.5.46 they did update the Driver Assistance software.

They use electronic beam steering to effect location data. What the unit is not good at is detecting a stopped car as it looks just like all the other background reflections. If it's moving at all, it'll pick it out quickly.
 
Bottom line is that both accurate relative speed, including zero, and distance are available, and because the beam is electronically steerable, it can get target direction information at the same time.
The radar that Tesla uses has only 3 fixed "beams". They are not steerable.

- - - Updated - - -

FYI: On the 2.5.46 they did update the Driver Assistance software.
They use electronic beam steering to effect location data. What the unit is not good at is detecting a stopped car as it looks just like all the other background reflections. If it's moving at all, it'll pick it out quickly.
Do you have info on the beam steering? I'd be surprised if it can be done with the controller that they use with a good enough precision. On the other hand, life is full of surprises.
 
I'm pretty sure I read that Tesla uses the Bosch radar system. Seems like when I read the datasheet (which I now cannot find) it had 2x3 and were fixed in position, but adjustable by calibration. I don't think they actively move when in operation, they just classify which zone they are in.
 
FYI: On the 2.5.46 they did update the Driver Assistance software.

They use electronic beam steering to effect location data. What the unit is not good at is detecting a stopped car as it looks just like all the other background reflections. If it's moving at all, it'll pick it out quickly.
It's like any other radar unit, the beam scans across the field of view and looks at the angle, distance and strength of the returns. A car stopped in front has a lot more vertical surfaces than the road so returns a strong signal, it's swept angle and distance are such that it would be hit if the car moved forward, so the TACC decides there's something in the way. I wouldn't be surprised if all this worked in conjunction with the forward camera and the ultrasonic sensors to infer more information, but the radar alone should be easily capable of locating a stopped car within range, and based on how the car responds, it does.
 
I'm pretty sure I read that Tesla uses the Bosch radar system. Seems like when I read the datasheet (which I now cannot find) it had 2x3 and were fixed in position, but adjustable by calibration. I don't think they actively move when in operation, they just classify which zone they are in.
No automotive radar has moving antennas, they are electronically swept by adjusting the relative timing of the signal emitted by each individual antenna. To aim the beam to the left, each antenna starts each individual wave (not pulse) slightly before the antenna to its left, to steer the beam right, slightly after the one to its left, for straight ahead they all start each wave at the same time.

Phased beam steering sounds a lot more mysterious than it is. Think about light as a wave, like a water surface wave in a shallow pool. The first thing to realize is that because there isn't anything holding the wave together (unlike a particle), the wave essentially restarts at every instant from whatever configuration it's in at the moment. That means that if you can get a wave train into a certain configuration, that is with all the peaks at a particular position and frequency, it doesn't matter how it got there, all wave trains with that configuration behave the same way no matter how they were created.

Now, think about a wave train with peaks running squarely left to right (angle = 0) hitting a wall which is at an angle to the waves, it will reflect off at an angle, the reflected wave's peaks at some angle to horizontal, say 30 degrees, moving away and to the left. Not surprising, but what is the difference between the the reflected an original waves? Measuring the original waves peaks distances from some wall at 0 degrees left to right, situated behind the reflecting wall, at any moment all the points on a single wave peak crest will be at the same distance from that wall, since a line along the crest is parallel to the 0 degree wall. Now, again measuring from the same 0 degree wall, but to the reflected waves, at any moment the distance to a single wave peak crest will increase as you move left to right since the angle of a line drawn along the crest is 30 degrees.

However, because we've earlier established that it makes no difference at all how a wave got into a certain configuration, it's possible to create both these waves, parallel and angled, by first removing the angle wall and using a series of water emitters on the 0 degree wall, and very accurately controlling the timing of when the water is pulsed out of each. If all the emitters pulse together, it produces a wave whose crest is at the same distance from the wall no matter where you measure it from left to right, although again, over time that distance will keep increasing as the wave moves away from the wall. That looks just like the original unreflected wave, although moving in the opposite direction.

If, on the other hand, each emitter puts out its pulse a tiny bit before the one to its left, at any moment its pulse will be a bit further away from the wall than the one from the emitter to its left. But that looks exactly like the reflected wave, the distance to the 0 degree wall increases from left to right and the line drawn along the crest is at 30 degrees. We've just steered the wave not by changing the angle of the wall with the emitters, but by carefully adjusting the timing of when the emitters pulse. If each emitter pulsed slightly before the one to its right, the wave would go off in the opposite direction and so on.

Apart from not having to physically move the wall to change the angle of the waves, it also allows the angle of the waves to be very rapidly slewed left to right because all that's needed is to change the emitters timing relative to each other which takes no additional energy to do. You do need fast valves and controllers though, and for radar that means very fast electronics, but not only are they available, they're cheap.
 
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I've posted a link to the datasheet earlier in this thread. Will re-post it later. With only two antennae you can't achieve a lot of spatial resolution anyway.

Not sure I'm grasping this, either.

With a single stationary phased array Doppler antenna, I can easily locate every object within the ~90 degree field of view in polar coordinates - bearing, elevation, and range with closure rates, even.

What spacial resolution were you feeling was missing with only two antennas?
 
Agreed on this, I see traffic slowing down up ahead while the MS starts accelerating - other than scary the sh* out of me, it also has to be inefficient.


No I don't think they are doing this but I agree that they should.
I have noticed how abruptly the car stops when using TACC and then quickly accelerates when traffic starts moving. Many times, I see the brake lights on the cars ahead of me but my MS is still accelerating, leaving me a bit unnerved. I don't know if it is technically feasible but it would be great if the camera mounted in the rear view could pick up the brake lights ahead and stop the MS from accelerating before the sonar picks up the shortened distance. This could make the stops less abrupt, lead to less brake wear and more regeneration of power.