Raytheon receives milestone patent

Raytheon is the recipient of the nation’s 10 millionth patent, which covers a system for obtaining real-time readings on speed and distance from the data stream created by laser radars.

The company currently holds 13,000 active patents, which includes nearly 4,500 based in the United States, and has more than 4,300 patent applications pending. Raytheon and inventor Joe Marron applied for the patent in 2015.

“Raytheon engineers and researchers like Joe have been pushing the bounds of what’s possible for generations,” Raytheon Chairman and CEO Thomas A. Kennedy said. “It’s what we do. We innovate, we solve hard problems, and we create solutions that explore new frontiers to shape an exciting future.”

Marron’s invention improves the ability of laser radars, which use reflected light to measure speed and distance, to identify and track objects.

By redesigning a laser radar like a digital camera, Marron learned he could spread data out across many pixels, each with its own processing electronics.

Using an approach called quadrature detection, which underlies many forms of wireless communications, the pixels report only the bits of data the sensor would need to draw a picture; in essence, it’s a form of data compression.

“We can take terabytes of information and translate it down into something that can be digested by a computer,” Marron said.

Officials believe the work can be used in autonomous car development as a laser radar that can identify objects with speed and clarity could help a vehicle’s artificial intelligence make better decisions.