Passive millimeter wave synthetic aperture imaging system

Abstract

Due to some problems (such as abnormal time consuming, low spatial resolution and large system volume) existing in the traditional passive millimeter wave (PMMW) imaging system, the application of traditional imaging system based on real aperture incoherent technology is limited on many occasion (security/medical check, etc). These defects can be overcame by replacing the traditional bulky imaging systems with two dimensional antenna arrays and electronic processors. This paper discusses preliminary design work for a demonstrator of a near range millimeter wave synthetic aperture passive imaging system. In the synthetic aperture system developed in this paper, the theory of near range synthetic aperture imaging technology is discussed, then a simple 2-d PMMW imaging prototype is designed for obtaining high-resolution PWMM images on the basis of this theory. Finally, we verify the feasibility of the system by numerical simulation. The experimental result demonstrates the superior performance in improving the spatial resolution of PMMW images.