Real-time Millimeter-wave 3D SAR Imaging with Orthogonal Bistatic Model

To satisfy the real-time demand, both data sampling and data processing are required to be high efficient in a millimeter-wave 3D SAR imaging system. For fast data sampling, antenna array is applied, which requires multiple transmit antennas and receiving antennas. In this paper, an orthogonal bistatic model is adopted for 2D and 3D imaging, and this model can significantly decrease the number of antennas, the complexity and cost of the hardware are also reduced. For fast data processing, an image reconstruction algorithm based on wavenumber domain transform is proposed, compared to BP algorithm, the proposed algorithm has much higher compute efficiency. A 2D imaging simulation with the frequency of 55GHz is demonstrated, and the imaging time is only 0.0177s. At the same time, a 3D imaging simulation with frequencies from 50GHz to 60GHz is also demonstrated, the imaging time is only 0.371s, and all of the result images can be clearly shown.