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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/automotive-millimeter-wave-radar-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Autonomous DrivingAutomotive Millimeter Wave Radar Patents: Filing Trends and Claim Space
- Filing activity has plateaued, not accelerated. The trend peaked at 92 families in 2019 and has run flat-to-declining since, with the 2022 midpoint at 60 — a market consolidating claims rather than racing to file new ones.
- The core is radar, not the vehicle integration around it. G01S accounts for 621 of 627 records versus 120 for antennas (H01Q) and 40 or fewer for each vehicle-systems subclass (B60R, B60K, B60Q), showing where the dense prior art actually sits.
- The most-cited prior art predates the current wave by a decade or more. The top-cited records date to the late 1990s and mid-2000s, meaning today's filers are building on foundational impulse-radar and automotive-sensor patents rather than displacing them.
627
Published Records
37%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-44%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··8 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This review tracks 627 patent families filed against automotive millimeter wave radar between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off, built from a search across FMCW, interference mitigation, target tracking and antenna array claims within G01S13, G01S7 and H01Q21. Radar sensing and antenna design dominate the claim landscape, while vehicle-integration subclasses such as propulsion, lighting and body systems appear only as secondary classifications on a minority of records.
Filing offices split heavily toward the United States and Europe, with China, WIPO and South Korea trailing well behind — a pattern consistent with radar sensing IP being prosecuted close to the automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers headquartered in those regions. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent filing year in this dataset understates real activity and should be read as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2017–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automotive Millimeter Wave Radar covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 627-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how those families distribute across IPC subclasses.
A plateaued filing curve
Filings rose from 40 in 2017 to a peak of 92 in 2019, then eased back toward a midpoint of 60 in 2022 before tapering further into the partial final year. That shape points to a technology whose foundational claim space filled up early in the survey window rather than one still in a filing ramp.
Radar and antenna claims dominate
G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) covers 621 of the 627 records, making it close to a universal classification for this corpus. H01Q (antennas) is a distant second at 120, and the vehicle-systems subclasses — B60R, B60K, B60Q — each sit at 40 or fewer, indicating that most inventive activity is concentrated in the sensing and antenna hardware rather than in how radar output is consumed downstream in the vehicle.
Shares are the percentage of the 627 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automotive Millimeter Wave Radar covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The most-cited prior art and a representative recent filing
Representative Filing
US20220326347A1 — Sparse antenna arrays for automotive radar
UHNDER, INC.
An exemplary radar sensing system utilizing a sparse array antenna structure provides an enhanced angular resolution to detect multiple targets with improved accuracy beyond the abilities of conventional radar. The exemplary radar system uses sparsely located antenna array elements allowing improved FOV, angular resolution, beam width, and side lobes using fewer physical antenna elements. Sparse antenna arrays allow the use of physically larger elements, larger separation between transmitter and receiver elements to reduce mutual coupling, and fewer elements to reduce necessary computations.Filed by UHNDER, INC., published 2022-10-13.
Highest-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050156780A1 | Methods and apparatus for automotive radar sensors | 345 |
| 2 | US5774091A | Short range micro-power impulse radar with high resolution swept range gate with damped transmit and receive … | 204 |
| 3 | US20060262007A1 | Methods and apparatus for automotive radar sensors | 184 |
| 4 | US20050225481A1 | Method and apparatus for automotive radar sensor | 184 |
| 5 | US5757320A | Short range, ultra-wideband radar with high resolution swept range gate | 132 |
| 6 | US20170293025A1 | Software defined automotive radar systems | 122 |
| 7 | US20090267822A1 | Mobile radar and planar antenna | 117 |
| 8 | US20110291875A1 | Automotive radar with radio-frequency interference avoidance | 106 |
| 9 | US20150153445A1 | Multichip automotive radar system, a radar chip for such a system, and a method of operating such a system | 105 |
| 10 | US20080088499A1 | Methods and apparatus for hyperview automotive radar | 103 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations; treat this as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automotive Millimeter Wave Radar covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers say about where this field stands
Reading the filing trend, the IPC mix and the receiving-office split together points to a technology with an occupied core and a narrower band of open claim territory.
Filing Trend
92 in 2019, 60 by 2022
peak vs. midpoint families
A market past its filing peak
The gap between the 2019 peak and the 2022 midpoint is wide enough to rule out a temporary dip. Combined with the tapering final years, it reads as a field where the foundational architecture — FMCW chains, phased and sparse antenna arrays, basic interference mitigation — is largely claimed, and remaining filings are incremental.
Interpret the final one to two years as undercounts given publication lag.
Technology Mix
621 of 627 in G01S
records classified under radar/positioning
Sensing hardware, not vehicle integration, is the crowded zone
With G01S present in nearly every record and H01Q a distant second, the dense prior art sits in waveform generation, ranging and antenna geometry. The vehicle-systems subclasses are thin by comparison, suggesting integration-layer claims — how radar output feeds specific driving functions — are less contested.
Subclass counts overlap; a single family can carry multiple IPC codes.
Filing Geography
US 292, EPO 156, China 55
records by receiving office
Prosecution is concentrated in the US and Europe
The United States and the EPO together account for the large majority of receiving-office activity, with China, WIPO and South Korea well behind. For a freedom-to-operate check, US and European prosecution history should be the first stop rather than an afterthought.
WIPO figures reflect PCT filings, which later nationalise into other offices.
Citation Base
Top cite: 345 (US20050156780A1)
citations on the most-cited record
Foundational art is fifteen to twenty years old
The most-cited documents in this corpus date to the late 1990s through mid-2000s and concern short-range impulse radar and early automotive radar sensor architectures. Recent filers are building on this base rather than displacing it, which is consistent with a mature sensing core.
High citation counts reward age within a fixed search window, not current commercial weight.
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to automotive millimeter wave radar, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automotive Millimeter Wave Radar covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Assignee landscape and recent momentum
Co-assignee activity is limited to a handful of pairs, and the recent-year momentum figures show several established filers pulling back rather than accelerating.
Collaboration
8 co-assignee pairs
across the full corpus
Cross-filing is rare and mostly intra-group
The strongest pairing links Mitsubishi Electric with its own European R&D centre, and the other pairs connect suppliers to university partners rather than to competing OEMs. Joint filing is not a major feature of this landscape.
Strongest pair: 8 shared families.
Momentum
0 filings in latest year for several named assignees
including multiple -100% YoY
Several established filers show a full-stop in the latest year
Assignees including NXP entities and Waymo show zero filings and a -100% year-over-year change in the most recent period. Given publication lag, some of this is timing rather than a genuine exit, but the breadth of the pattern across several names is notable.
Read the final year as provisional; publication typically lags filing by about 18 months.
Concentration
627 families, dense at G01S core
total families in ranking
A dense core with room at the edges
The overall filing base is sizeable but the technology composition shows most of it concentrated in core radar and antenna claims. Newer entrants with sparse-array or interference-mitigation angles, such as the representative UHNDER filing, are staking claims adjacent to — rather than on top of — the oldest prior art.
Ranking includes all 627 published families in this search.
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| NXP B.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Arbe Robotics Ltd. | 0 | — |
| NXP USA, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Waymo LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Uhnder, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Raytheon Company | 0 | — |
| Valeo Radar Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Aptiv Technologies Limited | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automotive Millimeter Wave Radar covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a plateaued core and a thinner integration layer. The next steps depend on whether you are clearing freedom to operate or scouting where to file.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the dense core
Before filing near FMCW waveform generation, ranging or standard antenna array geometry, check prosecution history at the US and EPO offices specifically, since that is where the bulk of this corpus is filed.
Explore FTO workflows in EurekaScope the under-claimed integration layer
Vehicle-systems subclasses such as B60R, B60K and B60Q carry far fewer records than G01S, which may mean genuine white space in how radar output is consumed by specific driving functions.
Map adjacent claim space in EurekaTrack assignees showing a momentum drop
Several named assignees show zero filings and steep YoY declines in the latest year. Confirm whether this reflects publication lag or an actual shift in filing strategy before drawing conclusions.
Monitor assignee activity in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automotive Millimeter Wave Radar covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about automotive radar patents
The most-cited records in this space, such as US20050156780A1 and its related family members, trace back to foundational automotive radar sensor work rather than to a single dominant modern assignee. Citation counts favour older filings because they have had more time to accumulate references within the searched corpus, so high citation volume signals historical influence rather than current market control. A practical assignee ranking should be read alongside recent-year filing momentum, since some historically active filers show little to no activity in the latest year of this dataset.
Based on this dataset, filing activity peaked at 92 families in 2019 and had fallen back to a midpoint of 60 by 2022, with further tapering into the partial final year. That pattern indicates a plateau rather than continued growth, though the most recent one to two years are understated because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Treat the apparent decline in the final years with caution until later publications catch up.
G01S, the radar, sonar and positioning subclass, appears in 621 of the 627 families in this corpus, making it close to universal across the dataset. H01Q, covering antenna design, is a distant second at 120 records. Vehicle-systems subclasses like B60R, B60K and B60Q are far thinner, each under 40 records, which suggests the crowded claim territory is in core sensing and antenna hardware rather than in how radar data is applied inside the vehicle.
The IPC composition points toward vehicle-integration claims — how radar output feeds specific driving or safety functions — as comparatively under-claimed relative to the dense radar and antenna core. Sparse and non-uniform antenna array designs, cross-radar interference coordination, and 4D imaging radar signal processing also show lighter density than baseline FMCW and ranging claims. Any first claim in these areas should be checked against the existing dense prior art in G01S and H01Q before assuming it is truly open.
Patent applications are typically published around 18 months after they are filed, so any record filed in the last year or two of a dataset's coverage window may not yet be publicly visible. This means the drop shown in the final year of a filing trend, including in this automotive radar dataset, is very likely a reporting artifact rather than a genuine collapse in filing activity. Analysts typically discount the last one to two years of any patent trend for this reason.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Automotive Millimeter Wave Radar covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company's registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.