Three-Dimensional Radar Imaging of Buildings Based on Computer Models

This paper describes the study of a through-the-wall radar system for three-dimensional (3-D) building imaging, based on computer simulations. Two possible configurations are considered, corresponding to an airborne spotlight and a ground-based strip-map geometry. The paper details all the steps involved in this analysis: creating the computational meshes, calculating the radar signals scattered by the target, forming the radar images, and processing the images for visualization and interpretation. Particular attention is given to the scattering phenomenology and its dependence on the system geometry. The images are created via the backprojection algorithm and further processed using a constant false-alarm rate (CFAR) detector. We discuss methods of 3-D image visualization and interpretation of the results.