LAUSR

In this letter, a forward-looking electromagnetic wave imaging method using radial scanning multichannel radar is proposed. Compared to the current forward-looking imaging systems, the method requires less hardware complexity due to the reduced number of channels, which is especially advantageous for millimeter-wave and higher frequency systems aiming for a high-resolution. By digitally processing the radially scanned radar data, a 3-D radar image is obtained. An image formation algorithm that exploits the computational efficiency of the fast Fourier transform is proposed. The effects of the radar parameters are discussed by analyzing the impulse response function. Moreover, the rotational sampling requirement, which relates to the field of view, is derived. A numerical simulation was performed to demonstrate the 3-D imaging capabilities of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method enables radar imaging using a substantially fewer number of channels.