Distributed Radar Imaging

VALUE PROPOSITION

Electromagnetic imaging sensors operating in the millimeter-wave band are an attractive solution for a variety of current and emerging applications, including airline passenger screening, as well as autonomous vehicle navigation. Such sensors generate two-dimensional representations of targets, thereby allowing for the automated extraction of information through traditional image processing techniques. Due to the short wavelengths associated with mm-wave radiation, imaging systems operating within this band provide sufficient spatial resolution to produce images which are recognizable by humans. Moreover, materials which are opaque to radiation in the infrared and visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as clothing, limited building materials, smoke, and fog, are effectively transparent to mm-wave propagation. This property enables all-weather sensing of the surrounding environment for autonomous navigation, as well as empowering through-material sensing for security applications. This technology provides improved sensitivity for mm wave imaging.

DESCRIPTION OF TECHNOLOGY

This technology is a novel approach for mm-wave and sub-mm-wave imaging, referred to as active incoherent millimeter-wave imaging. This technology provides enhanced resolution to filled phased arrays using fewer elements, thereby reducing size, cost, and power requirements. While this imaging approach has been previously employed in passive systems in both astronomy and security applications, imaging the weak intrinsic thermal emissions from the targets of interest, this technology leverages a temporally and spatially incoherent active transmission architecture designed to mimic the requisite signal characteristics of thermal emissions. This active approach will enhance signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver, thereby reducing bandwidth requirements for a specified sensitivity.

BENEFITS