Aperture synthesis with a monochromatic metasurface imaging system for 3D near-field imaging

Abstract

Microwave imaging systems have become increasingly prevalent owing to their ability to obtain 3D images while penetrating optically-opaque materials. These capabilities have motivated the development of various microwave imaging systems for applications ranging from security screening to biomedical imaging. Recent demonstrations have evidenced the idea that metasurface apertures can improve the hardware characteristics of microwave imaging systems due to their lightweight, low-cost, and planar nature. While metasurfaces can improve the antenna hardware, the large spectral bandwidth required for microwave imaging still incurs complex, costly, and performance-limiting RF components. To address the drawbacks inherent to using a large bandwidth, recent works have suggested that near-field microwave imaging can be performed at a single frequency point. In this work, monochromatic imaging is demonstrated by deploying two metasurface apertures to form a near-field microwave imaging system. By leveraging the unique radiation patterns emitted by metasurfaces, a pair of metasurface antennas, one acting as a transmitter and the other as a receiver, can acquire range and cross range information with measurements taken at a single frequency. We will show that this operation can then be supplemented by introducing aperture synthesis in the height direction to obtain fully 3D images. To account for the unusual illumination strategy, a reconstruction algorithm based on the range migration algorithm is formulated and implemented to enable efficient reconstruction of 3D images. Ultimately, the metasurface hardware, aperture synthesis, and monochromatic operation are combined to form an imaging system with high performance capabilities, without requiring complex and costly hardware.