PLEN-4: Recent Advances in Radar Imaging of Building Interiors

Date: Friday, March 19, 08:15 - 09:30

Presented by

Moeness Amin, Villanova University

Abstract

The objectives of “seeing” through walls include the determination of the building layouts, discerning the intent of activities inside the building, or locating, tracking, and imaging of building interiors. These three areas of attributes are highly desirable for a range of applications including police, fire and rescue, first responder, and military applications. Although radio frequency is the modality of choice for these applications, it is well known that electromagnetic waves passing through a medium are subject to amplitude and phase distortion, rendering imaging through walls a complex and difficult problem that requires cross-disciplinary research in electrical engineering. Fundamentally, it is a hybrid between two main areas, statistical and array signal processing on one hand and antennas and electromagnetics on the other. There are many challenges facing through-the-wall radar imaging system development, namely, the system should be reliable, portable, light weight, small-size, and has both short acquisition time and set-up time. The system performance should be robust to ambiguities and inaccuracies in wall parameters and should properly function under non-uniform wall, multiple walls, and operator motion. Ultimately, the system should have high range and cross-range resolutions that are application specific. Finally, it must be able to detect and classify motions in the presence of heavy clutter, which may include interior back and side walls, water pipes, electrical cords, and various types of furniture items. In this talk, we discuss recent advances in through wall radar imaging and present several successful examples in imaging and indoor target tracking. We also numerate existing difficulties and the continued challenges facing this technology.

Speaker Biography

Photo of Moeness Amin

Dr. Moeness Amin received his Ph.D. degree in 1984 from University of Colorado, Boulder. He has been on the Faculty of Villanova University since 1985, where is now a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of the Center for Advanced Communications. Dr. Amin is the recipient of the 2009 Individual Technical Achievement Award from the European Association of Signal Processing. He is a Fellow of the IEEE; Fellow of the International Society of Optical Engineering; Recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal; Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Signal Processing Society for 2003 and 2004; Member of the Franklin Institute Committee on Science and the Arts; Recipient of the 1997 Villanova University Outstanding Faculty Research Award; Recipient of the 1997 IEEE Philadelphia Section Service Award. Dr. Amin has over 450 publications in the areas of Wireless Communications and Networking, Time-Frequency Analysis, Smart Antennas, Interference Cancellation in Broadband Communication Platforms, Direction Finding, Satellite Navigations, Over the Horizon Radar, and Radar Imaging. Recently, he was a Guest Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing May-09 Special issue on Remote Sensing of Building Interior, and a Guest Editor of the upcoming IET Signal Processing Special Issue on Time-Frequency Approach to Radar Detection, Imaging, and Classification, and a Guest editor of the Journal of Franklin Institute September-08 Special Issue on Advances in Indoor Radar Imaging Dr. Amin served as a General and Technical Chair of several IEEE technical events, conferences and workshops. He is currently a member of the Overview Board of the IEEE SP Transactions.