MetaImager

Metamaterial Tranceiver Based Compressive RF Imaging System (2014 - 2017)

MetaImager Reconstructed 3D image mmW RX design
(a) MetaImager prototype. (b) Reconstruced 3D image of a manequin. (c) Layout of the used millimeter wave (mmW) RX.

 

This program has the goal to develop an advanced microwave/millimeter wave security screening and thread detection system (MetaImager) using metamaterial surface antennas, compressive and computatinal imaging technology, and custom designd RF hardware for the K and W-band. Radio frequency (RF) waves penetrate clothing, allowing detection and identification of concealed threat objects, while at the same time being non-ionizing and safe for human exposure. The MetaImager proposes an alternative approach to existing technologies, with the prospect of addressing and surmounting the limitations of conventional approaches. Existing systems rely on conventional hardware approaches, combined with fairly standard image reconstruction approaches. Most of the existing systems can produce acceptable images, but have disadvantages, including expense, undesirable infrastructure requirements, difficult and costly maintenance, slow scan times and moving parts, low framerates, lack of sensor fusion, and lack of flexibility or upgradeability. The purpose in the MetaImager program is to leverage emerging concepts in computational imaging, and re-engineering the RF aperture and overall RF-imaging system. Combining recent advances in metamaterials with advanced scene estimation techniques and inverse scattering approaches, the goal is to design and demonstrate a new modality of imaging. The MetaImager was designed with the following key attributes in mind: Low cost aperture and hardware requirements, minimal infrastructure requirements, no moving parts, reduced number of transceivers or source/receiver pairs, ability to support computational imaging concepts, greater control over radiation patterns, ability to support compressive imaging approaches, ability to integrate multiple sensors, including multiple RF bandwidths as well as infrared and optical sensors, video or faster framerates (real-time imaging), and an upgradeable, scalable and reconfigurable aperture.
Funding: U.S Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (grant number: HSHQDC-12-C-00049).
Project Partners: Duke University (coordinator), University of Washington, EVOLV Technology, University of Utah, Teledyn.

Related Publlications

  • A. Pedross-Engel, D. Arnitz, J. N. Gollub, O. Yurduseven, K. P. Trofatter, M. F. Imani, T. Sleasman, M. Boyarsky, X. Fu, D. L. Marks, D. R. Smith, and M. S. Reynolds, "Orthogonal Coded Active Illumination for Millimeter Wave, Massive-MIMO Computational Imaging with Metasurface Antennas," IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 184 - 193, June 2018.
  • A. Sharma, A. Pedross-Engel, D. Arnitz, C. M. Watts, D. R. Smith, and M. S. Reynolds, "A K-Band Backscatter Fiducial for Continuous Calibration in Coherent mmW Imaging," IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 431 - 438, 2018.
  • S. Devadithya*, A. Pedross-Engel*, C. M. Watts, N. I. Landy, T. Driscoll, and M. S. Reynolds, "GPU-Accelerated Enhanced Resolution 3-D SAR Imaging with Dynamic Metamaterial Antennas," IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 65, no. 12, pp. 5096 - 5103, Dec. 2017, (*co-first authors).
  • S. Devadithya, A. Pedross-Engel, C. M. Watts, and M. S. Reynolds, "GPU Accelerated Partitioned Reconstruction Algorithm for Millimeter-Wave 3D Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Images," in 2017 IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2017), Honololu, HI, USA, June 2017, pp. 1983-1986.
  • D. R. Smith, M. S. Reynolds, J. N. Gollub, D.L. Marks, M. F. Imani, O. Yurduseven, D. Arnitz, A. Pedross-Engel, T. Sleasman, P. Trofatter, M. Boyarsky, A. Rose, H. Odabasi, and G. Lipworth, "Security screening via computational imaging using frequency-diverse metasurface apertures," in Proceedings of SPIE 10189, Passive and Active Millimeter-Wave Imaging XX, Anaheim, CA, USA, April 2017, pp. 101890B-1 - 101890B-7.
  • S. Devadithya, A. Pedross-Engel, C. M. Watts, and M. S. Reynolds, "Partitioned Inverse Image Reconstruction for Millimeter-Wave SAR Imaging," in 2017 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, New Orleans, LA, USA, March 2017, pp. 6060 - 6064.
  • A. Pedross-Engel, D. Arnitz, and M. S. Reynolds, "Self-Jamming Mitigation via Coding for Millimeter Wave Imaging with Direct Conversion Receivers," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 410 - 412, April 2017.
  • J. N. Gollub, O. Yurduseven, K. P. Trofatter, D. Arnitz, M. F. Imani, T. Sleasman, M. Boyarsky, A. Rose, A. Pedross-Engel, H. Odabasi, G. Lipworth, D. Brady, D. L. Marks, M. S. Reynolds, and D. R. Smith, "Large Metasurface Aperture for Millimeter Wave Computational Imaging at the Human-Scale," Scientific Reports, vol. 7, pp. 42650, Feb. 2017.