Improved characterization of scenes with a combination of MMW radar and radiometer information

Abstract

For security related applications MMW radar and radiometer systems in remote sensing or stand-off configurations are well established techniques. The range of development stages extends from experimental to commercial systems on the civil and military market. Typical examples are systems for personnel screening at airports for concealed object detection under clothing, enhanced vision or landing aid for helicopter and vehicle based systems for suspicious object or IED detection along roads. Due to the physical principle of active (radar) and passive (radiometer) MMW measurement techniques the appearance of single objects and thus the complete scenario is rather different for radar and radiometer images. A reasonable combination of both measurement techniques could lead to enhanced object information. However, some technical requirements should be taken into account. The imaging geometry for both sensors should be nearly identical, the geometrical resolution and the wavelength should be similar and at best the imaging process should be carried out simultaneously. Therefore theoretical and experimental investigations on a suitable combination of MMW radar and radiometer information have been conducted. First experiments in 2016 have been done with an imaging linescanner based on a cylindrical imaging geometry [1]. It combines a horizontal line scan in azimuth with a linear motion in vertical direction for the second image dimension. The main drawback of the system is the limited number of pixel in vertical dimension at a certain distance. Nevertheless the near range imaging results where promising. Therefore the combination of radar and radiometer sensor was assembled on the DLR wide-field-of-view linescanner ABOSCA which is based on a spherical imaging geometry [2]. A comparison of both imaging systems is discussed. The investigations concentrate on rather basic scenarios with canonical targets like flat plates, spheres, corner reflectors and cylinders. First experimental measurement results with the ABOSCA linescanner are shown.