Overview September 2004 The Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology A tutorial - Millimetre Wave imaging European Microwave Conference Defence and Security Forum Prof Roger Appleby
Overview
September 2004
The Institute of Electronics, Communications and
Information Technology
A tutorial - Millimetre Wave imaging
European Microwave Conference
Defence and Security Forum
Prof Roger Appleby
Timetable
08.30: TITLE: Millimetre Wave Imaging – A Tutorial Introduction
SPEAKER: Roger Appleby, Queen’s University Belfast
0910: TITLE: A Terahertz Imaging Radar for Concealed Object
Detection at Long Standoff Ranges
SPEAKER: Ken Cooper, JPL, NASA
0945: TITLE: Passive Technology – The Application of Passive Sub-
millimetre Wave Technology to Weapon and IED Detection
SPEAKER: Arttu Luukanen, Millimetre Wave Laboratory of Finland –
MilliLab
1020: Coffee
10:40: TITLE: Ultra-wideband Radar for the Detection of Buried
Targets
SPEAKER: David Daniels, Cobham Technical Services
Outline
1. Introduction
– Atmosphere
– Materials properties
2. Architectures
– Performance – Spatial resolution
– Sensitivity
– Active
– Passive
3. Summary
Standoff Detection
• An instrument with aperture D
• Positioned at Range Rm
• Aim: to detect and recognise an object under clothing
• Airport, checkpoint, embassy, public event
7
D
Rm
Performance affected by:
1. Target (explosives) signature
2. Atmospheric transmission
(relates to range and
location)
3. Target concealment
4. General environment
• Laser sources at frequencies of less than 1 THz
used to image weapons under clothing
Barker, D.H., et al., T.S., “Far infrared imagery,”
Proceedings of SPIE, vol. 67, 1975.
Atmospheric Attenuation
Wallace Zuffrey Masters Thesis 1972
Stand-off detection of weapons and contraband in the 100-1000GHz region, R Appleby and BR Wallace,
IEEE Trans on Antennas and Propagation, Special Issue on, Optical and Antenna Technology, Vol. 55, No. 11, Nov
2007.
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
100 1000 10000
Frequency GHz
Ro
un
d T
rip
Tra
ns
mis
sio
n
Hot Dry Atmosphere Humid Hot Coastal Atmosphere
0.1-10THz Atmospheric
Transmission 100m path
9
Coastal areas of Gulf, highest
water content 40C, 63% RH
400GHz appears to be the upper
frequency limit
Extreme Hot/Dry 44C, 4%
RH, is a good case for THz,
1THz is the practical limit
Wallace’s Atmospheric Effects Model
>300GHz there is structure
and variability due
to atmospheric conditions
0.1 0.3 0.6 1 2 10
THz
Millimetre wave imaging
• Clothes transparent (t=1)
• Paper transparent (t=1)
• Body =0.6 r= 0.4
• Metal r=1 (specular)
• Sky very cold
• Resolution poor (3mrad)
• 94GHz passive
Contrast?
Scattering
• Particles large compared to wavelength – Irregular reflection
• Particles similar size to wavelength – Resonant scattering
– Mie scattering
• Particles smaller than wavelength – Rayleigh Scattering
– proportional to 1/4
99.8%
Att
en
uati
on
/ d
B p
er
km
Tra
nsm
issio
n o
ver
1km
10GHz 100GHz 1THz 10THz 100THz 1000THz
1
10
100
1000
0.1
0.01
10%
80%
98%
10 %-8
10 %
mm-wave
submm-wave
Infra-red
Vis. UVmicro-wave
94GHz
35GHz
Fog
(50m vis)
Heavy rain
(25 mm/hr)
Drizzle
(0.25 mm/hr)
Atmospheric Attenuation
Aerosols
3 0.03 0.3
mm
Scattering
Explosives
• Typically 150µm crystals in a binder
• Dense Medium Scattering Calculations • (Zurk et al JOSA (B) Vol 24 No 9 Sept 2007)
• Analysis of two polythene samples with different grain sizes
• SGPE~ 50µm and LGPE~ 150µm
• Clothing
• Phase Distribution model applied to clothing
• Fletcher et al. SPIE 5999 2005
13
SGPE LGPE
HMX
THz – Explosives signature
• Most spectra reported for thin
or diluted materials
• Thick (~5mm) explosive
opaque above 500GHz
Reflectance Spectrum of RDX (90%)
Diffuse 10-100 less
Baker, C., et al. SPIE, vol. 5790, pp. 1-10, 2005
Transmission/ Absorption Spectrum of thin RDX
Explosives
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
83 197 310 423
GHz
Tra
ns
mis
sio
n
PE4
Semtex
Sample A
Transmission Spectrum
5mm thick Semtex - C4
QinetiQ
Sample B
Zhang et.al NATO, MP-SET-129, May 2008.
Measured
Calculated
Measured
Calculated
Measured
Calculated
HMX spectrum
• Spectrum can be destroyed by scattering
• Dependence on: • Angle
• Microstructure
• Good fit to theory
15
Calculated
Measured
Reflectivity of HMX at 10 and 60º
(Ortolani et al, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 93, 081906, 2008)
Clothing
Sweatshirt
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
THz
Tra
nsm
issio
n
Tee shirt
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
THz
Tra
nsm
issio
n
Leather
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.5 1 1.5
THz
Tra
nsm
issio
n
Sweater
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0 0.5 1 1.5
THz
Tra
nsm
issio
n
QinetiQ
Gatesman et al. SPIE 6212 2006 Dickinson et al. SPIE 6212 2006
Bjarnason, et. Al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85(4) 2004.
t=0.75mm
Skin
Reflectivity of water and skin
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100
GHz
Refl
ew
cti
vit
y
Skin(30) Skin(0) Water(0)
Skin 35GHz(0) Pulsed THz(0)
Stand-off detection of weapons and contraband in the 100-1000GHz region, R Appleby and BR Wallace,
IEEE Trans on Antennas and Propagation, Special Issue on, Optical and Antenna Technology, Vol. 55, No. 11, Nov
2007.
Dielectric on water 100 and 500GHz
Dielectric (n=1.6)
Water (n =3.7, k=2.24 (100GHz)
Dielectric (n=1.6 k=0.02)
Water (n =2.37, k=0.75 (500GHz)
Baker
100GHz 500GHz
Baker, C., et al. Proceedings of SPIE, vol. 5790, pp. 1-10, 2005. Appleby,R., Coward,P., and Sinclair,G. Detection of Illegal Objects
Ed R Miles et al. Terahertz Frequency Detection and Identification
of Materials and Objects, 225-240, 2007 , Springer.
Summary Section 1
• Clothing, plastics and some other materials are transparent
• There is transmission through the atmosphere, so standoff is possible • above 450GHz dependent on the water vapour
• Scattering is an issue at higher frequencies
• Explosives have characteristic spectral signatures in the THz range – Difficult to exploit
Spatial resolution
Spot size S at range R: S R D 122.
D
R
S
Resolution x3
(3D or R/3or /3)
90GHz
Resolution x1
90GHz
Note: Pistol images are schematics only
Passive
emission
reflection
horn
Lens
Represents dish or lens
Receiver
Signal broad band white noise
Typical Architectures
• System – Quasi-optic
– Aperture synthesis
• Detector Technology – RF Solid state
• Super heterodyne
• Direct detection
– Bolometer
• Cooled
Direct Detection receiver
LNA 15dB gain <5dB NF
80 to 100GHz bandwidth
Diode detector
WG to MS transition
Horn Antenna
Line Driver
Barnes A.R., Munday P.D., Jennings R., Black M., Appleby R., Anderton R.N., Sinclair G.N., and Coward
P.R, “MMIC Technology and its applications in mm-wave imaging systems”. In 3rd
ESA Workshop on
mm-Wave Technology and Applications, pp 543-547, 2003.
Amp LNA LNA LNA
Bolometer
• Power P from an incident signal is absorbed by the bolometer
• Heats up a thermal mass with heat capacity C and temperature T.
• Thermal mass is connected to a reservoir of constant temperature
through a link with thermal conductance G.
• Temperature increase is ΔT = P/G.
• Change in temperature is read out with a resistive thermometer. The
intrinsic thermal time constant is τ = C/G.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolometer
Infrared bolometer Sang-Baek Ju. et al. SPIE 3698 1999
Typical Architectures
• System – Quasi-optic
– Phased array
– Coherent / Incoherent
• Transmitter and receiver technology – RF Solid state
• Super heterodyne receiver
• Multiplied transmitter
– Tube for transmitter
• Solid state receiver
Radar Equation
• PR Power receiver
• PT Power transmitted
• GT gain of transmit antenna
• AR area receiver antenna
• RT transmitter to subject range
• RR receiver to subject range
• σ radar scattering cross-section area of target
2224 TR
RTTR
RR
AGPP
1. F.T. Ulaby, R.K. Moor, and A.K. Fung. Microwave Remote Sensing - Active and Passive, Vol. II, Radar Remote
Sensing and Surface Scattering and Emission Theory. Artech House, 1982.
2. Mark A. Richards, Fundamentals of Radar Signal Processing by, P 62-63, McGraw-Hill 2005,
TR
RTTR
RR
AGPP
24
For beam limited case (Ref 2)
i.e. All the beam falls on the target For general case (Ref 1)
Radar
• Narrow Bandwidth improves signal to
noise ratio
• Transmitter tends to be spatially and
temporally coherent
• Possibility of range gating – C speed of light
– RF bandwidth
RF
cR
2
RF
Radar Architecture
• Low frequency
source multiplied
• Clean source
s x2
PLO SPDT
x2 x2 x2
648GHz out
13.3GHz
27GHz54GHz 108GHz 216GHz
x3s x2
PLO SPDT
x2 x2 x2
648GHz out
13.3GHz
27GHz54GHz 108GHz 216GHz
x3100MHz ref
s x3
PLO SPDT
100MHz refx2 x2 x2
Reflected
640GHz in13.3GHz
40GHz 80GHz 160GHz 320GHz
IF output
IF output
s x3
PLO SPDT
100MHz refx2 x2 x2
Reflected
640GHz in13.3GHz
40GHz 80GHz 160GHz 320GHz
IF output
IF output
s x3
PLO SPDT
100MHz refx2 x2 x2
Reflected
640GHz in13.3GHz
40GHz 80GHz 160GHz 320GHz
IF output
IF output
Transmitter
Receiver
Active v Passive
Active
• Transmitter
– Monostatic, Bistataic,
Opportunity
• Coherent illumination
– Speckle
– High angular dependence
– Synthetic aperture
– Range gating
• More dynamic range
Passive
• Naturally emitted or reflected
radiation
• Less angular dependant
• More weather dependant
• Natural imagery
• Less processing
640GHz
Jacobs et al. SPIE 6212 2006
94GHz Passive
QinetiQ