Publications

A video-rate microwave imaging aperture for concealed threat detection can serve as a useful tool in securing crowded, high foot traffic environments. Realization of such a system presents two major technical challenges: 1) implementation of an electrically large antenna array for capture of a moving subject, and 2) fast image reconstruction on cost-effective computing hardware. This paper presents a hardware-efficient multistatic array design to address the former challenge, and a compatible fast imaging technique to address the latter. Prototype hardware which forms a partition of an imaging aperture is discussed. Using this hardware, it is shown that the proposed array design can be used to form high-fidelity 3D images, and that the presented image reconstruction technique can form an image of a human-sized domain in ≤ 0.1s with low cost computing hardware.

A prototyping testbed for an experimental millimeter-wave multiple-imput multiple-output (MIMO) radar system for security applications in high foot-traffic areas will be presented. The system is designed for flexible operation at a 10 Hz video rate, enabled by high-speed electronic scanning and real-time signal processing. Overall imaging system costs are reduced by the use of an innovative ultra-sparse multistatic radar solution and a 3-D near-field beamforming image construction technique targeted for low-cost high-throughput GPU processors. The testbed is architected with FPGAs, GPUs, CPU storage, and networking, capable of supporting future growth in capabilities, such as interference suppression & advanced signal processing algorithms, auxiliary sensing modalities, near-sensor analytics, and integration into a system-of-systems security architecture.