Orthogonal Coding for Millimeter-Wave Imaging Using MIMO Dynamic Metasurface Apertures

The recent advent of dynamic metasurface antennas (DMAs) as a millimeter-wave computational imaging (CI) platform has mitigated the hardware limitations of traditional imaging systems in terms of acquisition time, flexibility and cost. Considering a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system fully realized by DMA panels, real-time simultaneous data acquisition can occur by adopting an orthogonal coded approach which enables concurrent transmission and reception by all DMA panels. The image is then reconstructed in the frequency domain by utilizing a signal decompression step that enables the use of a range migration algorithm (RMA) for the compressed signal received by the DMA panels. In that way, the time for the signal processing layer is also significantly reduced compared to the traditional image reconstruction methods usually applied to DMA-based systems. Simulation results of resolution targets are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the suggested technique.