Applicability of radio astronomy techniques to the processing and interpretation of aperture synthesis passive millimetre-wave applications

This PhD programme is contributing to the development of Passive Millimetre-Wave Imagers (PMMWI) using the principles of interferometric aperture synthesis and digital signal processing. The principal applications are security screening, all-weather flight aids and earth observation. To enhance the cost-effectiveness of PMMWI systems the number of collecting elements must be minimised whilst maintaining adequate image fidelity. A wide range of techniques have been developed by the radio astronomy community for improving the fidelity of sparse interferometric array imagery. This paper brings to the attention of readers these techniques and discusses how they may be applied to imaging using software packages publicly available from the radio astronomy community. The intention of future work is to adapt these algorithms to process experimental data from a range of realistic simulations and real-world targets.