The blade beam reflector antenna for stacked nearfield millimeter-wave imaging

A novel reflector antenna for nearfield millimeter-wave imaging applications has been developed. Combining parabolic curvature in one plane with elliptical curvature in the other, this antenna generates a “blade beam” focusing radiated field at a line. When excited at its focal point, transmitted rays are collimated in the first (horizontal) plane, each passing through the focal line at the second ellipse focus. As such, they illuminate a narrow slice of an object to be imaged. With only this slice illuminated, the scattered field will only be due to this narrow portion of the object, allowing for computationally simple inversion of a one-dimensional contour rather than an entire two-dimensional surface. Stacking the reconstructed contours for various horizontal positions provides the full object image.