Active Millimeter-wave Imaging Systems Research Articles

Active Millimeter Wave Imaging Using Leaky-Wave Focusing Antenna

In this article, an active millimeter-wave imaging system using two rectangular waveguide leaky-wave focusing antennas deployed in a quasi-monostatic transmitter and receiver pair is proposed. The broadband design method of the focusing antenna is presented, where the phase constant is derived from the radiation direction of a rectangular waveguide leaky-wave antenna. To eliminate the effect of mutual coupling between the transmitting and receiving antennas and scattering from the surrounding environment, the scattered field from the object is obtained by subtracting the incident field from the total field. The 1-D detection of conducting sphere, conducting and dielectric cylinders, and a conducting plate is performed by experiment to validate the imaging capability of the proposed system. The 2-D imaging of a conducting cylinder in free space and positioned in front of a human body phantom representing the human body is finally performed to simulate the practical application of the system.

Millimeter-Wave Coherent Imaging of Moving Targets by Using Complex-Valued Self-Organizing Map and Auto-Encoder

Active millimeter-wave imaging systems using complex-valued self-organizing map (CSOM) have potentially wide applications in moving-target imaging by acquiring and classifying complex textures. However, interference in the coherent observation causes harmful effects such as amplitude fluctuation and phase distortion, resulting in the deterioration of the visualization quality achieved by the CSOM. In this article, we propose the introduction of feature refinementZ using a complex-valued auto-encoder (AE) into the feature extraction process of our imaging system to suppress these effects. We show that the complex-valued AE is extremely useful for extracting features appropriately even under such adverse influences, and improves the clustering performance. We also experimentally investigate the influence of the number of hidden-layer neurons on the AE performance to discuss the robustness of our system.

Surface-roughness measurement based on scalar field correlation with active millimeter-wave imaging system.

Active millimeter-wave (MMW) imaging is of interest because it has played an important role in the area of personnel surveillance over the past decades. Through reconstructing reflectivity, potential threats can be recognized based on shape. Besides reflectivity, diverse physical characteristics should be explored so that supplementary information can be used to assist recognition. This paper presents a surface-roughness measurement method using holographic data that has already been acquired during security checks. Based on scalar diffraction theory and speckle metrology, a simple mathematical relation between the correlation of holographic fields and surface roughness has been derived. Consequently, another kind of information, that is, the surface-roughness estimate, can be used to help differentiate similarly shaped articles. Results of simulations and laboratory experiments have shown its validation and potential in application to MMW imaging systems.

Research on an artificial dielectric material for millimeter-wave imaging application.

Material made of artificial molecules fabricated from cage-shaped granules of conductor (CGC) is introduced and its electrical and magnetic characteristics are presented. Its refractive index, calculated using complex relative permittivity and complex relative permeability, is 1.504 at 35 GHz. A two-element lens, consisting of a pair of spherical plano-convex lenses, was designed and fabricated by embedding CGC in poly(methyl methacrylate). The active millimeter-wave imaging system was constructed with the two-element lens by having the curved surfaces face each other. Millimeter-wave (MMW) images of a right trapezoid and twin bars were obtained. The image quality was acceptable, proving that the CGC material has the ability to refract MMWs in MMW imaging and that the ability contrasts with that of some traditional high polymer material.

Multispectral illumination and image processing techniques for active millimeter-wave concealed object detection

Active millimeter-wave imaging systems for concealed object detection offer the possibility of much higher image contrast than passive systems, especially in indoor applications. By studying active millimeter-wave images of different test objects derived in the W band, we show that multispectral illumination is critical to the detectability of targets. We also propose to use image change detection techniques, including image differencing, normalized difference vegetation index, and principle component analysis to process the multispectral millimeter-wave images. The results demonstrate that multispectral illumination can significantly reveal the object features hidden by image artifacts and improve the appearance of the objects.