A Sparse Aperture MIMO-SAR-Based UWB Imaging System for Concealed Weapon Detection

A high-resolution imaging system based on the combination of ultrawideband (UWB) transmission, multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) array, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is suggested and studied. Starting from the resolution requirements, spatial sampling criteria for nonmonochromatic waves are investigated. Exploring the decisive influence of the system's fractional bandwidth (instead of previously claimed aperture sparsity) on the imaging capabilities of sparse aperture arrays, a MIMO linear array is designed based on the principle of effective aperture. For the antenna array, an optimized UWB antenna is designed allowing for distortionless impulse radiation with more than 150% fractional bandwidth. By combining the digital beamforming in the MIMO array with the SAR in the orthogonal direction, a high-resolution 3-D volumetric imaging system with a significantly reduced number of antenna elements is proposed. The proposed imaging system is experimentally verified against the conventional 2-D SAR under different conditions, including a typical concealed-weapon-detection scenario. The imaging results confirm the correctness of the proposed system design and show a strong potential of the MIMO-SAR-based UWB system for security applications.