Low-cost Imager for Heavily Degraded Visual Environments

This project aims to develop a low-cost millimeter-wave (mmW) imaging system for ground vehicles, to operate in combination with a long-wave infrared (LWIR) camera. Such a system will mitigate the challenges of driving in degraded visual environments (DVE) including night time, fog, dust, or smoke by providing real-time image of the vehicle surrounding independent from the presence of naturally occurring or man-made visual obscurants. The combination of mmW and LWIR imaging modalities enables both the detection of objects at a long range through the use of the penetrating millimeter waves and the high acuity through the use of LWIR. The operation of the mmW system is based on discrete sampling of the naturally occurring thermal mmW radiation emanating from the scene with an array of antennas, spatially coherent up-conversion of the received signals to optical domain, and analog optical processing to reconstruct the mmW image. In addition to passive imaging, active illumination mode enables detecting the distance to objects in the scene.