A new approach for near-field wideband synthetic aperture beamforming

A coarray-based synthetic aperture beamformer using stepped-frequency signal synthesis and post-data acquisition processing is presented for wideband imaging of near-field scenes. The proposed beamformer formulation and implementation finds key applications in through-the-wall microwave imaging and landmine detection problems. While coarray techniques offer significant reduction in array elements for a given angular resolution, stepped-frequency realization of wideband systems simplifies implementation and offers flexibility in beamforming. Proof of concept is provided using real data collected in an anechoic chamber. Comments Copyright 2003 IEEE. Reprinted from Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing 2003 (ICASSP 2003), Volume 5, pages 89-92. Publisher URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isNumber=26996&page=1 This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of the University of Pennsylvania's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it. This conference paper is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/ese_papers/39 A NEW APPROACH FOR NEAR-FIELD WIDEBAND SYNTHETIC APERTURE BEAMFORMING' Fauzia Ahmad', Gordon J. Frazer2, Saleem A. Kassam3, and Moeness G. Amin' 'Center for Advanced Communications, 'ISR Division, DSTO, 3Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Villanova University, Edinburgh, Australia. University of Pennsylvania, Villanova, PA 19085. e-mail: [email protected] Philadelphia, PA 19104. e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]