Millimeter wave imaging system for the detection of nonmetallic objects

With over 110 million landmines buried throughout the world, the ability to detect and identify objects beneath the soil is crucial. The increased use of plastic landmines requires the detection technology to be able to locate both metallic and non-metallic targets. A novel active mmW scanning imaging system was developed for this purpose. It is a hyperspectral system that collects images at different mmW frequencies from 90-140 GHz using a vector network analyzer collecting backscattering mmW radiation from the buried sample. A multivariate statistical method, Principal Components Analysis, is applied to extract useful information from these images. This method is applied to images of different objects and experimental conditions.