MILLIMETER-WAVE IMAGING SYSTEM, PARTICULARLY FOR CONTRABAND DETECTION

摘要

Millimeter-wave imaging elements and systems aredisclosed. The system components may be used fornavigation in fog, for example, or for other purposes,including a contraband detection system especiallysuited for detecting concealed non-magnetic and non-metallic contraband such as ceramic or plastic weaponsor illegal drugs. In this embodiment of the invention,plural sources 110 of quasi-coherent millimeter waveradiation are disposed so as to uniformly illuminate afield of view. The radiation emitted by the sourcesmay be linearly polarized in a single plane such thatthe polarization of the radiation with respect to theplane in which linearly polarized radiation ispreferentially received by the detectors can becontrolled. For detection of dielectric objects, suchas ceramic weapons or narcotics, these planes ofpolarization should be orthogonal to one another. Thedetector is a staring array 3 6 which does not requirescanning to generate an image of the entire field ofview: the signal provided by each element 66 of thedetector array corresponds to the illuminationreflected from objects in a single portion of the fieldof view. Real-time imaging of concealed non-magneticand non-metallic objects is thus made possible.