Miniaturised Distributed Transceivers for Far-Field Microwave Imaging

Abstract

A novel microwave imaging system using miniaturised distributed sensors (transceivers),operating in far-field is proposed. The system is quick to deploy and is based on scattered miniature transceivers scanning a region which makes it a surreptitious one. Each sensor will consist of a transmitting and a receiving antenna, microwave signal generation and reception circuitry. The information from all the individual sensors will be conveyed wirelessly to a remote controller where using a simplified Synthetic Aperture Radar processing, a useful image is developed from the information collated. The most important feature of the proposed system is that a person being scanned, will not be aware of it. In the present work, the proposed transceiver circuitry (easily implementable using CMOS-RF) is replaced with a network analyzer for laboratory testing. Target detection and shape estimation of irregular shaped targets is achieved for exposed and partially shielded targets.