Freehand mm-Wave Imaging With a Compact MIMO Radar

Abstract

This communication presents a freehand imaging system, which takes full advantage of a compact multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar to provide the real-time results by means of freehand movements. The system is based on a commercial radar-on-chip, equipped with four receivers and two transmitters, and an optical tracking system (i.e., motion capture system) for retrieving its position and attitude. The reduced size of the radar enables its handheld operation, making possible to create a synthetic aperture by moving the scanner over the area of interest. Due to the new degrees of freedom with respect to previous implementations based on quasi-monostatic topologies, a novel calibration strategy for the system is required in order to mitigate positioning errors. After calibration, the simulations and measurements are accomplished revealing that the novel freehand multistatic setup significantly outperforms the monostatic setup in terms of scanning speed and image quality. Multimedia material is provided to illustrate this performance.