A Microwave Imaging Spectrometer for Security Applications

In recent years the security of people and critical infrastructures is of increasing interest. Passive microwave sensors in the range of 1 - 100 GHz are suitable for the detection of concealed objects and wide-area surveillance through poor weather and at day and night time. The enhanced extraction of significant information about an observed object is enabled by the use of a spectral sensitive system. For such a spectral radiometer in the microwave range also some depth information can be extracted. The usable frequency range is thereby dependent on the application. For through-wall imaging or detection of covert objects such as for example landmines, the lower microwave range is best suited. On the other hand a high spatial resolution requires higher frequencies or instruments with larger physical dimensions. The drawback of a large system is the required movement of a mirror or a deflecting plate in the case of a mechanical scanner system, or a huge amount of receivers in a fully-electronic instrument like a focal plane array. An innovative technique to overcome these problems is the application of aperture synthesis using a highly thinned array. The combination of spectral radiometric measurements within a wide frequency band, at a high resolution, and requiring a minimum of receivers and only minor moving parts led to the development of the ANSAS instrument (Abbildendes Niederfrequenz-Spektrometer mit Apertursynthese). ANSAS is a very flexible aperture synthesis technology demonstrator for the analysis of main features and interactions concerning high spatial resolution and spectral sensing within a wide frequency range. It consists of a rotated linear thinned array and thus the spatial frequency spectrum is measured on concentric circles. Hence the number of receivers and correlators is reduced considerably compared to a fully two-dimensional array, and measurements still can be done in a reasonable time. In this paper the basic idea of ANSAS and its setup are briefly introduced. Some first imaging results showing the basic capabilities are illustrated. Possible error sources and their impacts are discussed by simulation and compared to the measured data.