10/27: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Low-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Overview and Signal Processing Techniques

We are very pleased to bring you Lam Nguyen, who is flying up to visit
us from the US Army Research Laboratory. Lam will present his work
on: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Low-
Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR): Overview and Signal
Processing Techniques.

This talk will be on Wednesday October 27, at 6pm in the MIT/LL
Cafeteria.

For details, please visit:
http://www.ieeeboston.org/org/subgroups/antennas_propagation.html

This is a special multi-chapter talk, brought to you by AESS, AP-S,
GRSS, and SPS chapters of Boston. A special thanks to Eli Brookner
for setting up this talk.

Please feel free to invite your friends, it is sure to be an enjoyable
evening full of radar, antenna, signal processing, and sensing
discussions.

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Abstract

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This talk first presents an overview of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) UWB low-frequency SAR. The second part of the talk presents the SAR signal processing and image formation techniques employed by the ARL UWB radar. ARL has designed and fabricated a vehicle-based UWB low-frequency SAR for the detection of concealed targets such as obstacles behind foliage, and surface and buried mines. The low-frequency radar also offers the capability of mapping of a building interior, as well as detecting moving targets behind the walls. The radar system can be configured in various modes of operation: forward looking SAR, side-looking SAR, and stationary. The radar transmits time-domain impulses that occupy the frequency band of 300—3000 MHz. The system employs a physical array of 16 receive antennas to provide the necessary aperture for sufficient cross-range resolution in the forward-looking and stationary modes. Two transmitters are located at the two ends of the receive array to virtually double the size of the physical receive array and maximize the cross-range resolution in the forward-looking mode.

The signal processing section includes the suppression of interference signals, the removal of signal distortions due to the moving platform with respect to the scene during the data acquisition cycle, the subband filtering, and the SAR image formation. ARL has developed the Recursive Sidelobe Minimization (RSM) technique that is integrated with the standard back-projection image formation. The technique has been shown to significantly reduce the artifacts due to sidelobes and noise in SAR imagery. This talk presents results from the forward-looking experiments for the detection of obstacles. SAR imagery of a building interior from the side-looking SAR mode is also presented.

Mr. Lam Nguyen received the BSEE, MSEE, and MSCS degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, VA, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, and The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, respectively.

He started his career with General Electric Company from 1984 to 1985. He has been with the Army Research Lab (ARL) and its predecessor organization, Harry Diamond Labs, from 1986 to the present. He has been primarily engaged in the research and development of several versions of ultra-wide-band (UWB) radar since 1992 to present. These radar systems have been used for the proof of concept demonstration in many concealed target detection programs. He has been developing algorithms for SAR signal and image processing. Mr. Nguyen has authored or coauthored over 70 conference and journal publications. Mr. Nguyen received the U.S. Army Research and Development Achievement Awards in 2006, 2008, and 2010.