High-Resolution Millimeter-Wave Tomography System for Characterization of Low-Permittivity Materials

Tomographic microwave imaging is employed in numerous industrial applications, e.g., nondestructive testing. However, most existing systems are not suitable for measurements of low-permittivity materials such as gaseous substances or insulating foam with high air content. This paper introduces a 79...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Och, Andreas, Holzl, Patrick A., Schuster, Stefan, Schrattenecker, Jochen O., Freidl, Philipp F., Scheiblhofer, Stefan, Zankl, Dominik, Pathuri-Bhuvana, Venkata, Weigel, Robert
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Millimeter wave radar
nondestructive testing
permittivity
Permittivity measurement
Prototypes
Radar antennas
Radar imaging
Sensor phenomena and characterization
time of arrival estimation
Tomography
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Tomographic microwave imaging is employed in numerous industrial applications, e.g., nondestructive testing. However, most existing systems are not suitable for measurements of low-permittivity materials such as gaseous substances or insulating foam with high air content. This paper introduces a 79 GHz high-resolution tomography system enabling characterization of materials with relative permittivity close to one. It is based on fully-integrated frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar transceivers which significantly reduce cost and complexity. A first prototype is built with two radar sensors and a rotary stage to emulate a higher sensor count. The medium-dependent time-of-flight through the area-under-test is evaluated and Tikhonov regularization is applied to solve the inverse problem and reconstruct a 2D image. System simulations and measurements with low-permittivity foam objects confirm the feasibility of this approach.
ISSN:2576-7216
DOI:10.1109/IMS30576.2020.9224048