Abstract
In this article, an improved millimeter-wave fast imaging algorithm with range compensation for one-stationary bistatic synthetic aperture radar (OS-BiSAR) is presented. During the process of image reconstruction, the amplitude attenuation factor of the echo model is retained for the compensation of signal propagation loss, and the convolution operation is performed on the receiving array dimension according to the characteristics of the target echo equation. Finally, the target image can be solved by fast Fourier transform (FFT) and coherent accumulation steps. Simulation analysis and experimental results show that, compared to the range migration algorithm (RMA) with range compensation, the proposed algorithm can not only guarantee the efficiency of image reconstruction, but also significantly reduce the influence of signal propagation loss on the image quality.
Different from X-ray, millimeter-wave can not only penetrate clothing and other media materials, but also ensure human life, health and safety. Moreover, millimeter-wave can also achieve high-resolution imaging. Therefore, active millimeter-wave imaging technology can be widely used in civil fields such as security check and medical imagin
OS-BiSAR, also known as bistatic parasitic SA
In this article, an improved fast imaging algorithm with range compensation for OS-BiSAR is proposed. During the implementation of this algorithm, the target image is decomposed into multiple sub-images and the FFT-based imaging scheme is adopted, which means that the proposed algorithm can not only ensure the efficiency and quality of the target image reconstruction, but also significantly improve the performance of range compensation.
The imaging geometry of the near-field OS-BiSAR is shown in
, | (1) |
. | (2) |

Fig. 1 Imaging geometry of the near-field OS-BiSAR
图1 近场OS-BiSAR成像几何
Through considering the signal propagation loss, the amplitude attenuation factor is introduced into the echo model. Assuming that the transmitter transmits wide-band signal, the echo model can be expressed as:
. | (3) |
In the above formula, is the spatial wave number, in which and denote the frequency and the light speed respectively.
Define
, | (4) |
. | (5) |
Then, (3) can be rewritten as
. | (6) |
According to the principle of matched filterin
. | (7) |
The relation between and is
. | (8) |
In the above formula, and represent the convolution symbol and the impulse function respectively. It can be seen that (7) is the convolution integral expression of , which can be transformed into
. | (9) |
Time domain convolution is equivalent to frequency domain multiplication. Then, the fast Fourier transform (FFT) operation is performed on dimension of (9)
. | (10) |
For each spatial wave-number , we can get
. | (11) |
The sub-image corresponding to can be obtained by performing inverse FFT operation on dimension of Eq.(11)
. | (12) |
Then, the amplitude and phase compensation are performed on each sub-image according to Eq.(4)
. | (13) |
The final target image can be obtained by coherent accumulation of all the sub-images
. | (14) |
In the above formula, denotes the number of spatial wave-number. Therefore, the steps of improved fast imaging algorithm with range compensation for OS-BiSAR are as follows:
(1) Performing FFT operation on of the 2-D spatial echo signal respectively, and the spectral echo signal can be obtained.
(2) Establishing the expression which contains the amplitude and phase terms
. | (15) |
(3) Performing FFT operation on the height dimension of to obtain .
(4) For each spatial wave-number , define .
(5) IFFT operation is performed on of to obtain the sub-image corresponding to the spatial wave-number .
(6) Performing the amplitude and phase compensation for each sub-image , and the corrected sub-image can be obtained by .
(7) The final target image can be reconstructed by the coherent summation of all the target sub-images .
Assuming that the magnitude of each variable is , and the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm can be estimated to be according to the above process. In contrast, the computational complexity of OS-BiSAR RMA with range compensation in Ref.[
In this article, the OS-BiSAR RMA with range compensation is used to compare with the proposed algorithm, and then the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in compensating signal propagation attenuation can be verified. All the imaging algorithms were implemented on a computer with 2.1 GHz processor and 8 GB memory. In the OS-BiSAR imaging system, the length of the receiving array is 0.486 m, where the spacing of the array elements is set to 6mm. The frequency range of the transmitted signal is set to 26.5 GHz to 40 GHz, and the number of sampling points is 101.
As shown in
It can be seen from

(a)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 2 Imaging results of the target model of multiple points, (a) the target model of multiple scattering points, (b) imaging result of OS-BiSAR RMA with range compensation, (c) imaging result of the proposed algorithm.
图2 多点目标模型成像结果 (a) 理想散射点目标模型,(b) OS-BiSAR体制下基于距离补偿的RMA重构结果,(c) 所提算法重构结果
In this article, an OS-BiSAR experimental system is built to verify the feasibility of the proposed method in practical application. In this system, the length of the receiving array is 0.3 m, where the spacing of the array elements is set to 9 mm. The frequency range of the transmitted signal is set to 30 GHz to 36 GHz, and the number of sampling points is 101.
The imaging scene is shown in

(a)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 3 Experimental results of the corner reflector and the metal ball at different distances, (a) imaging scene, (b) imaging result of OS-BiSAR RMA with range compensation, (c) imaging result of the proposed algorithm.
图3 目标为位于不同距离的角反射器和金属小球的实验成像结果,(a) 成像场景,(b) OS-BiSAR体制下基于距离补偿的RMA重构结果,(c) 所提算法重构结果

(a)

(b)
Fig. 4 Azimuth profiles of the corner reflector and the far ball by using (a) OS-BiSAR RMA with range compensation and (b) the proposed algorithm
图4 通过使用(a)OS-BiSAR体制下基于距离补偿的RMA和(b)所提算法得到的角反射器和远处金属小球的方位像结果
In order to quantitatively analyze the attenuation compensation effect of the proposed method for different targets, the azimuth profiles of the experimental scene obtained by using OS-BiSAR RMA with range compensation and the proposed algorithm are presented in
In this article, an improved millimeter-wave fast imaging algorithm with range compensation for OS-BiSAR has been proposed. From the above analysis, it can be seen that compared with OS-BiSAR RMA with range compensation, the proposed algorithm not only avoids multi-step approximation and interpolation operations, but also significantly reduces the influence of signal propagation loss on the imaging quality while ensuring the reconstruction efficiency. It will provide useful guidance for the imaging of long-distance weak targets under near-field conditions. Further developments of fast imaging algorithms with range compensation for MIMO-SAR and cross-MIMO array are planned for the imaging of complex targets such as mannequin and models of vehicles.
Acknowledgements
Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61871386, No. 62035014 and No. 61921001)
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