Towards 3D-imaging with low-cost SiGe-Technology at 160GHz

This paper presents a compact, low-weight and flexible continuous wave (CW) millimeter-wave (mmWave) active imaging system implemented in low-cost SiGe-Technology. It is based on a receiver (RX) chip with zero-intermediate frequency (IF) quadrature mixing covering the 158-to-165 GHz band. This heterodyne imaging system provides dynamic range of 110 dB and yields high imaging contrast. Using this mmWave imaging system it is possible to exploit both the magnitude and the phase information of the transmitted wave. The available bandwidth of 8 GHz can be employed for swept sources in radar sensing applications offering the capability of 3D image reconstruction.