Analytical model and optical design of distributed aperture optical system for millimeter-wave imaging

Caihua Chen; Christopher A. Schuetz; Richard D. Martin; Jesse Samluk; E. Lee Stein Jr.; Daniel G. MacKrides; Mark Mirotznik; Dennis W. Prather

doi:10.1117/12.801527

2 October 2008 Analytical model and optical design of distributed aperture optical system for millimeter-wave imaging

Caihua Chen, Christopher A. Schuetz, Richard D. Martin, Jesse Samluk, E. Lee Stein Jr., Daniel G. MacKrides, Mark Mirotznik, Dennis W. Prather

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7117, Millimetre Wave and Terahertz Sensors and Technology; 711706 (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.801527
Event: SPIE Security + Defence, 2008, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom

Abstract

Millimeter-wave imaging is very interesting due to its unique transmission properties through a broad range of atmospheric obscurants such as cloud, dust, fog, sandstorms, and smoke, which thereby enables all-weather passive imaging. Unfortunately, the usefulness of millimeter-wave imagers is often limited by the large aperture sizes required to obtain images of sufficient resolution, as governed by the diffraction limit. To this end, we previously proposed a distributed aperture system for direct non-scan millimeter-wave imaging using an optical upconversion technique. In this proposed approach, an antenna array is employed to sample image signals in the millimeter-wave domain. The sampled millimeter-wave signals are then upconverted to the optical domain using electro-optic modulation techniques. These optical signals are mapped into a similar array on the entrance pupil of the following optical system for direct imaging. Although distributed aperture imaging is not new in both radio astronomy and conventional optical inteferometric imaging, the proposed approach is different in that it physically samples image in the millimeter-wave domain and directly forms the image in the optical domain. Therefore, specific analysis and evaluation techniques are required for the design and optimization of the proposed system. In this paper, we will address these issues, develop techniques to evaluate and enhance the system imaging performance and present methods to optimize the geometric configuration.

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Caihua Chen, Christopher A. Schuetz, Richard D. Martin, Jesse Samluk, E. Lee Stein Jr., Daniel G. MacKrides, Mark Mirotznik, and Dennis W. Prather "Analytical model and optical design of distributed aperture optical system for millimeter-wave imaging", Proc. SPIE 7117, Millimetre Wave and Terahertz Sensors and Technology, 711706 (2 October 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.801527

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