Experimental Imaging Results of a UAV-mounted Downward-Looking mm-wave Radar

Optical and thermal sensors mounted on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been successfully used to image difficult-to-access regions. Nevertheless, none of these sensors provide range information about the scene; and, therefore, their fusion with high-resolution mm-wave radars has the potential to improve the performance of the imaging system. This paper presents our preliminary experimental results of a downward-looking UAV system equipped with a passive optical video camera and an active Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) mm-wave radar sensor. The 3D imaging of the mm-wave radar is enabled by collecting data through the line of motion, thus producing a synthetic aperture, and by using a co-linear MIMO array perpendicular to the motion trajectory. Our preliminary results shows that the fused optical and mm-wave image provides shape and range information, that ultimately results in an enhanced imaging capability of the UAV system.

安装在无人机（UAV）上的光学和热传感器已成功用于对难以到达的区域进行成像。然而，这些传感器都无法提供有关场景的距离信息；因此，它们与高分辨率毫米波雷达的融合有可能提高成像系统的性能。本文介绍了我们对一个配备无源光学摄像机和有源多输入多输出（MIMO）毫米波雷达传感器的下视无人机系统的初步实验结果。毫米波雷达通过沿运动路线收集数据（从而形成合成孔径）以及使用垂直于运动轨迹的共线MIMO阵列来实现三维成像。我们的初步结果表明，融合后的光学和毫米波图像提供了形状和距离信息，最终提高了无人机系统的成像能力。