One microwave imaging system based on automotive radar chip

• Main Authors: Fuwei Wu, Siming Li, Shize Shang, Yuanji Li, Yuhao Yang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019-10-01
• Series: The Journal of Engineering
• Subjects: road vehicle radar; array signal processing; image reconstruction; fast fourier transforms; mimo communication; microwave imaging; fm radar; medical image processing; transmitting antennas; radar imaging; antenna arrays; scanning time; traditional monostatic linear array; fft image reconstruction technique; microwave imaging system; automotive radar chip; concealed threat detecting; current imaging systems; multistatic arrays; complex hardware design; ineffective backprojection-imaging algorithm; monostatic linear arrays; sub-array time-division multiple-input multiple-output
• Online Access: https://digital-library.theiet.org/content/journals/10.1049/joe.2019.0605

The interest in microwave imaging system is increasing because it can serve as a useful tool for concealed threat detecting. The current imaging systems have two major challenges: (i) multi-static arrays suffer from complex hardware design and ineffective backprojection-imaging algorithm, and (ii) monostatic linear arrays suffer from large scanning time due to the electronically scanning one by one of the co-located receive–transmit antennas. To address these challenges, this study introduces a novel linear imaging array based on automotive radar chips and sub-array time-division multiple-input multiple-output working principles, which is hardware efficient and compatible fast Fourier transform (FFT) imaging technique. Through simulation, it is shown that the scanning time is only one-fourth of the traditional monostatic linear array and the FFT image reconstruction technique can be used.