A low-cost through-the-wall FMCW radar for stand-off operation and activity detection

In this paper we present a new through-wall (TW) FMCW radar system. The architecture of the radar enables both high sensitivity and range resolutions of <1.5 m. Moreover, the radar employs moving target indication (MTI) signal processing to remove the problematic primary wall reflection, allowing higher signal-to- noise and signal-to-interference ratios, which can be traded-off for increased operational stand-off. The TW radar operates at 5.8 GHz with a 200 MHz bandwidth. Its dual-frequency design minimises interference from signal leakage, and permits a baseband output after deramping which is digitized using an inexpensive 24-bit off-the-shelf sound card. The system is therefore an order of magnitude lower in cost than competitor ultrawideband (UWB) TW systems. The high sensitivity afforded by this wide dynamic range has allowed us to develop a wall removal technique whereby high-order digital filters provide a flexible means of MTI filtering based on the phases of the returned echoes. Experimental data demonstrates through-wall detection of individuals and groups of people in various scenarios. Target positions were located to within ±1.25 m in range, allowing us distinguish between two closely separated targets. Furthermore, at 8.5 m standoff, our wall removal technique can recover target responses that would have otherwise been masked by the primary wall reflection, thus increasing the stand-off capability of the radar. Using phase processing, our experimental data also reveals a clear difference in the micro-Doppler signatures across various types of everyday actions

A high resolution ultrawideband wall penetrating radar

A high resolution ultra wideband radar prototype is developed for through the wall imaging. The frequency range of operation of the radar is selected to be 1.85 to 6 GHz in order to have high spatial resolution. Besides the hardware, we have also developed a custom image processing software which attacks the problem of false target recognition and rejection. In this paper, we present our prototype along with various experimental results such as detecting stationary targets and detecting respiratory activity of a human behind a 23 cm thick brick wall

Through-The-Wall Detection Using Ultra Wide Band Frequency Modulated Interrupted Continuous Wave Signals

Through-The-Wall-Detection (TTWD) techniques can improve the situational awareness of police and soldiers, and support first responders in search and rescue operations. A variety of systems for TTWD based on different waveforms have been developed and presented in the literature, e.g. radar systems based on pulses, noise or pseudo-noise waveforms, and frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) or stepped frequency continuous wave (SFCW) waveforms. Ultra wide band signals are normally used as they provide suitable resolution to discriminate different targets. A common problem for active radar systems for TTWD is the strong backscattered signal from the air-wall interface. This undesired signal can overshadow the reflections from actual targets, especially those with low radar cross section like human beings, and limit the dynamic range at the receiver, which could be saturated and blocked. Although several techniques have been developed to address this problem, frequency modulated interrupted continuous wave (FMICW) waveforms represent an interesting further approach to wall removal, which can be used as an alternative technique or combined with the existing ones. FMICW waveforms have been used in the past for ionospheric and ocean sensing radar systems, but their application to the wall removal problem in TTWD scenarios is novel. The validation of the effectiveness of the proposed FMICW waveforms as wall removal technique is therefore the primary objective of this thesis, focusing on comparing simulated and experimental results using normal FMCW waveforms and using the proposed FMICW waveforms. Initially, numerical simulations of realistic scenarios for TTWD have been run and FMICW waveforms have been successfully tested for different materials and internal structure of the wall separating the radar system and the targets. Then a radar system capable of generating FMICW waveforms has been designed and built to perform a measurement campaign in environments of the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, Durham University. These tests aimed at the localization of stationary targets and at the detection of people behind walls. FMICW waveforms prove to be effective in removing/mitigating the undesired return caused by antenna cross-talk and wall reflections, thus enhancing the detection of targets

FMCW Signals for Radar Imaging and Channel Sounding

A linear / stepped frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) signal has for a long time been used in radar and channel sounding. A novel FMCW waveform known as “Gated FMCW” signal is proposed in this thesis for the suppression of strong undesired signals in microwave radar applications, such as: through-the-wall, ground penetrating, and medical imaging radar. In these applications the crosstalk signal between antennas and the reflections form the early interface (wall, ground surface, or skin respectively) are much stronger in magnitude compared to the backscattered signal from the target. Consequently, if not suppressed they overshadow the target’s return making detection a difficult task. Moreover, these strong unwanted reflections limit the radar’s dynamic range and might saturate or block the receiver causing the reflection from actual targets (especially targets with low radar cross section) to appear as noise. The effectiveness of the proposed waveform as a suppression technique was investigated in various radar scenarios, through numerical simulations and experiments. Comparisons of the radar images obtained for the radar system operating with the standard linear FMCW signal and with the proposed Gated FMCW waveform are also made. In addition to the radar work the application of FMCW signals to radio propagation measurements and channel characterisation in the 60 GHz and 2-6 GHz frequency bands in indoor and outdoor environments is described. The data are used to predict the bit error rate performance of the in-house built measurement based channel simulator and the results are compared with the theoretical multipath channel simulator available in Matlab

Wall Compensation for Ultra Wideband Applications

Due to their low frequency contents, ultra wideband (UWB) signals have the ability to penetrate walls and obstacles. As the signal propagates through these obstacles, it gets attenuated, slows down, and gets dispersed. This paper demonstrates wall compensation for through-wall imaging, localization and communication receiver design purposes by first characterizing wave propagation through various building materials in the UWB frequency range. Knowledge of the walls obtained from the wall characterization is used to estimate and correct the position accuracy of a target object located behind the walls using three proposed methods namely; constant amplitude and delay (CDL), frequency dependent data (FFD), and data fitting methods (FIT). The obtained results indicated relatively acceptable measure of wall compensation for the three methods. Results from such work provide insight on how to develop algorithms for effective target position estimation in imaging and localization applications. They are also useful for channel modelling and link budget analysis

Ultra-wideband Impulse-based Radar Signals for Through-the-wall Imaging

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is the promising technology for localization of the objects behind the walls. Recent terrorist activities and law-enforcement situations underscore the need for effective through-wall detection. The approval of UWB technology made by federal communications commission (FCC) in 2002 makes the researchers to have a look on this technology. UWB radar signals has extremely large frequency spectrum and since low frequencies has more penetration capabilities through dielectric materials it is best suitable for through-the-wall radar imaging (TWRI). Signal processing in TWRI has a greater impact in getting the information of the scanned area. This paper uses impulse signals in TWRI, examines the factors impacting in TWRI and obtains the two dimensional information of the scanned scene. Electromagnetic simulation software is used to generate the room like structure, and to obtain the raw radar data.Defence Science Journal, 2012, 62(1), pp.187-192, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.62.84

Characterization of Ultra Wideband Multiple Access Performance Using Time Hopped-Biorthogonal Pulse Position Modulation

The FCC\u27s release of its UWB First Report and Order in April 2002 spawned renewed interest in impulse signaling research. This work combines Time Hopped (TH) multiple access coding with 4-ary UWB Biorthogonal Pulse Position Modulation (TH-BPPM). Multiple access performance is evaluated in a multipath environment for both synchronous and asynchronous networks. Fast time hopping is implemented by replicating and hopping each TH-BPPM symbol NH times. Bit error expressions are derived for biorthogonal TH-BPPM signaling and results compared with previous orthogonal TH-PPM work. Without fast time hopping (NH = 1), the biorthogonal TH-BPPM technique provided gains equivalent to Gray-coded QPSK; improved BER at a given Eb/No and an effective doubling of the data rate. A synchronized network containing up to NT = 15 transmitters yields an average BER improvement (relative to an asynchronous network) of approximately -6.30 dB with orthogonal TH-PPM and approximately 5.9 dB with biorthogonal TH-BPPM. Simulation results indicate that doubling the number of multipath replications (NMP) reduces BER by approximately 3.6 dB. Network performance degrades as NT and NMP increase and synchronized network advantages apparent in the NMP = 0 case diminish with multipath interference present. With fast time hopping (NH \u3e 1) improves BER performance whenever NMP \u3c NH while reducing effective data rate by 1/NH. Compared to the NH = 1 synchronized network, TH-BPPM modulation using NH = 10 provides approximately 5.9 dB improvement at NMP = 0 and approximately 3.6 dB improvement at NMP = 5. At NMP = 10, the BER for the hopped and NH = 1 cases are not statistically different; with NH = 10 hops, BER improvement varies from approximately 0.57 to 0.14 dB (minimal variation between synchronous and asynchronous network performance)