Millimeter-wave imaging of person-borne improvised explosive devices

Abstract

With the recent rise in casualties and threat of casualties resulting from person-borne improvised explosive devices (PBIEDs) there is an urgent need for building imaging systems to perform standoff and portal detection of such threats. An optimum system that fulfills the requirements of PBIED detection must be low cost and have a high probability of detection with low probability of false alarm. A standoff detection system must also be portable while a portal imaging system can be stationary. Currently there are a variety of modalities being researched to perform standoff detection of PBIED's including: backscatter X-ray imaging, infrared imaging, optical detection, terahertz imaging, video analytics, and millimeter-wave (MMW) imaging. MMW imaging at frequencies less than 100 GHz is a preferable modality for full body imaging of PBIEDs for many reasons. MMWs can propagate through the atmosphere and clothing with very little attenuation, while at the same time do not cause damage to human skin tissue. MMWs are small enough to build physical and synthetic aperture systems small enough to have a realistic physical system footprint while also providing excellent cross-range resolution. Present technology is available to generate very wideband coherent MMW signals, which can be used to generate very high resolution images of targets at both standoff (>15 meters) and portal (<1 >meter) distances.