In this paper we demonstrate the use of compressive sensing to form an image with an image plane random mask and a single pixel sub-millimeter wave receiver. This type of imaging device is a practical solution in domains where focal plane arrays do not exist. The imager consists of a heterodyne source and receiver pair, image forming optics, a spatially selective mask, and data acquisition and post-processing hardware and software. The spatially selective mask modulates the signal measured by the receiver which is then sampled by an analog to digital converter and is post-processed to reconstruct the image. The spatially selective mask can produce image samples at full video rates. The post-processing used for this research consists of a sparseness inducing transformation on the measurements and application of compressive sensing reconstruction algorithms. We show several images acquired and reconstructed using this system. While the data acquisition of this system is real time, the processing currently must be done online. We comment on the performance improvement by using compressive sensing methods.

Date Published: 26 May 2011
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8022, Passive Millimeter-Wave Imaging Technology XIV, 80220K (26 May 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.884147

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8022:
Passive Millimeter-Wave Imaging Technology XIV
David A. Wikner; Arttu R. Luukanen, Editor(s)