Three-Dimensional Active Incoherent Millimeter-Wave Imaging Using Noise Pulse Integration

Abstract

We introduce and experimentally demonstrate a new three-dimensional active incoherent millimeter-wave (AIM) imaging method using pulsed noise illumination and a sparse interferometric receive array. AIM imaging relies on the space-time incoherence of received signals to sample scene information in the spatial Fourier domain, from which two-dimensional images can be reconstructed. By transmitting pulsed noise waveforms, we demonstrate the ability of AIM imaging to add a third dimension to the image formation process. Furthermore, whereas Fourier imaging would typically require long noise waveforms to support temporal incoherence, we implement integration over a series of noise pulses, thus individual sampled pulses may be as short as a single temporal sample. We describe the 3D Fourier imaging algorithm and demonstrate imaging of multiple objects using a 38 GHz millimeter-wave imaging system.