3D through the wall microwave imaging

Abstract

Through the wall imaging, meaning capacity to look beyond the wall or visually opaque object has been of particular interest in modern era since situational awareness is of vital importance at numerous occasions especially in defense related operations. The capability of microwave signals to penetrate light opaque materials and sense distant or inaccessible objects with reasonable spatial resolution makes them attractive for detecting objects beyond the wall. Imaging through wall was initiated in Pakistan by the students of MCS last year. Keeping in view the considerable work done by them and being the need of the hour due to the environment prevailing in the country we decided to pursue it and enhance it to the next level. The project builds on the concept of Synthetic Aperture Radar Beamforming [13]. The algorithm from previous project [2] takes large computational time; our algorithm has significantly reduced this time for 2 dimensional imaging of an object behind the wall. This substantial improvement in the algorithm has been achieved by a novel concept called “CUBISM”. The concept of CUBISM has been extended in developing efficient algorithm for 3 dimensional imaging of an object giving information about its location in depth as well as in azimuth plane. The algorithm is implemented on a dedicated processor that will ensure portability at the software level. The image obtained shows a 3D structure of the object in the target area. The dimensions of the obtained 3D image depict the true dimensions of the object in the target area and its exact location is also identified.