Modified wavenumber domain algorithm for three-dimensional millimeter-wave imaging

Millimeter-wave (MMW) imaging techniques have been used for the detection of concealed weapons and contraband carried on personnel at airports and other secure locations. The combination of frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) technology and MMW imaging techniques should lead to compact, light-weight, and low-cost systems which are especially suitable for security and detection application. However, the long signal duration time leads to the failure of the conventional stop-and-go approximation of the pulsed system. Therefore, the motion within the signal duration time needs to be taken into account. Analytical three- dimensional (3-D) backscattered signal model, without using the stop-and-go approximation, is developed in this paper. Then, a wavenumber domain algorithm, with motion compensation, is presented. In addition, conventional wavenumber domain methods use Stolt interpolation to obtain uniform wavenumber samples and compute the fast Fourier transform (FFT). This paper uses the 3- D nonuniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT) instead of the Stolt interpolation and FFT. The NUFFT-based method is much faster than the Stolt interpolation-based method. Finally, point target simulations are performed to verify the algorithm.