Patent analysis: revealing the promising trends in the advancement of radio electronic systems using the reflection or reradiation of radio waves

To identify the promising (breakthrough) trends in the advancement of radio electronic systems with the use of US Patents and Trademark Office database this paper examines the possibilities of patent analysis. This method is based on automatic time series generation of US patents for inventions and subsequent comparison of different technical solutions in specific International Patent Classification subgroups, and in their issuance dynamics for 2007-2017. In particular, the authors analyze several promising trends in the advancement of radio electronic systems using the reflection or secondary radiation of radio waves. The data obtained allow stating that the most promising are systems using the reflection of radio waves and systems adapted for specific applications. According to the authors, the most promising systems, which use the reflection of radio waves, are systems intended solely for measuring distance using transmission of continuous unmodulated waves, amplitude-, frequency- or phase-modulated waves. Radar or analogous systems specially adapted for terrain-avoidance were found to be the most promising among systems for specific applications.