Building layout and interior target imaging with SAR using an efficient beamformer

Accurate information about the locations of the targets inside a building and the layouts of the inner rooms of the building is very helpful in many search-and-rescue missions. In this paper the full scale building layout and interior target imaging is investigated using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with a hybrid beamforming approach. An efficient freespace beamforming algorithm, implemented with the fast Fourier/inverse Fourier transform (FFT/IFFT), is presented for the building layout imaging. The far field layered medium Green's function is then employed in the through-wall beamformer to achieve a focused image of the targets inside the building. Numerical results are presented to show that detailed information of the building layout as well as focused imaging results of the target inside the building can be achieved with the proposed SAR imaging technique.