The design and testing of an active 190-GHz imaging system is presented. The system features two beam-scanning antennas, one of which transmits a vertical fan beam, and the other which receives a horizontal fan beam. By correlating the transmitted and received signals, an output is obtained that is proportional to the millimeter-wave reflectivity at the intersection of the two fan beams. Beam scanning is obtained by rotating a small subreflector within each antenna, allowing rapid scanning. The system has an angular resolution of 0.3 deg, a field of view of 14×14 deg, and operates at a standoff distance of 5 m.
We have designed a terahertz imaging system, built with electronic components and operating at a single tunable
frequency. The system scans in hybrid mode, combining coarse mechanical positioning with a fine scan produced
by perturbing the beam with a system of opaque masks, placed into the collimated beam. The mask set is
based on a modified Hadamard design, which aims at minimizing the loss of power and noise effects. The image
acquisition is performed in transmission mode, with the sample placed at the focal plane. We present several
imaging results obtained using our technique.
A prototype of terahertz imaging system has been built in CSIRO. This imager uses a backward wave oscillator as the
source and a Schottky diode as the detector. It has a bandwidth of 500-700 GHz and a source power 10 mW. The
resolution at 610 GHz is about 0.85 mm. Even though this imaging system is a coherent system, only the signal power is
measured at the detector and the phase information of the detected wave is lost. Some initial images of tree leaves,
chocolate bars and pinholes have been acquired with this system. In this paper, we report experimental results of an
attempt to improve the resolution of this imaging system beyond the limitation of diffraction (super-resolution). Due to
the lack of phase information needed for applying any coherent super-resolution algorithms, the performance of the
incoherent Richardson-Lucy super-resolution algorithm has been evaluated. Experimental results have demonstrated that
the Richardson-Lucy algorithm can significantly improve the resolution of these images in some sample areas and
produce some artifacts in other areas. These experimental results are analyzed and discussed.
A prototype cross-correlating 190 GHz passive mm-wave imaging system has been developed. This system is based on the Mills Cross system used for radio astronomical imaging. It uses two pillbox antennas arranged in a T configuration. Each antenna generates a fan beam and the two fan beams are orthogonal to each other. By cross-correlating signals received from the two antennas, an output is obtained which is proportional to the millimeter-wave intensity radiated from the target at the intersection of the two fan beams. Beam scanning is generated by rotating a small sub-reflector inside each antenna. As a result, these relatively heavy antennas are stable during scanning and a high frame rate can be achieved. Another advantage of this approach is that only two receivers are required. The baseline (the displacement between phase centers of the two antennas) of this system is not zero, because the phase centers of the two antennas are not located at the same position. The baseline generates a fringe in the imaging system and its influence on the performance of the system is analyzed in this paper. The scanning speed of this system is also much faster than that of the Mills Cross imaging system and its influence on the resolution is also analyzed. It is found that the effect of the scanning speed is minimized when the beam scans along the equal-phase line of the fringe. This system can also be used as an active imaging system and this is discussed in another paper.
The design and testing of a 190 GHz imaging system is presented. The system features two beam-scanning antennas; the first transmits a horizontal fan beam and the second receives a vertical fan beam. By correlating the signals from the antennas, an estimate of the millimeter-wave reflectivity at the intersection of the fan beams is obtained. Each fan beam is scanned by rotating a small subreflector within the antenna; this simple rotation motion allows rapid scanning. The system is portable, currently approximately 0.6m × 0.6m × 2m high; the key size constraint is imposed by the 450 mm aperture length of the antennas. The imager has an angular resolution of 0.25° and a field of view of 14°×14°, resulting in a raw image of approximately 50 × 50 pixels. The raw image is processed using super-resolution techniques. Images will be presented which show the capability of the system to image metallic and ceramic objects beneath clothing. These images were obtained by illuminating the scene with signals from a frequency-doubled Gunn oscillator. While this paper focuses on active imaging, the system can also operate in passive mode with reduced sensitivity.
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