October 2016
Spotlight Summary by Brad Deutsch
Application of range migration algorithms to imaging with a dynamic metasurface antenna
Microwave radiation is used to form images of buried objects, which is crucial in security screening and medical settings. But traditionally, the hardware needed for such imaging is cumbersome, including large arrays of antennas or bulky, moving parts. One attractive alternative is to use "dynamic metasurface antennas." They consist of a small array of antennas that can produce custom transmitted fields with a high degree of accuracy and control. By quickly varying the radiation pattern, enough diverse measurements can be made in order to produce diffraction-limited images.
The compact size and speed come with a trade-off: a computationally intensive optical inverse problem has to be solved, which has so far prohibited these antennas from enjoying widespread use. In this paper, Pulido-Mancera et al. tackle this challenge by reformulating the problem to make it similar to a related, solved inverse problem. They show that by defining a mathematical operator that transforms the field at the metasurface to a field at another particular surface in free space and then piggy-backing on the solved problem, they can cut down on real-time computation significantly. They perform computer simulations that demonstrate that diffraction-limited images can be acquired using this method, which is promising for the field of microwave imaging.
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The compact size and speed come with a trade-off: a computationally intensive optical inverse problem has to be solved, which has so far prohibited these antennas from enjoying widespread use. In this paper, Pulido-Mancera et al. tackle this challenge by reformulating the problem to make it similar to a related, solved inverse problem. They show that by defining a mathematical operator that transforms the field at the metasurface to a field at another particular surface in free space and then piggy-backing on the solved problem, they can cut down on real-time computation significantly. They perform computer simulations that demonstrate that diffraction-limited images can be acquired using this method, which is promising for the field of microwave imaging.
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Article Information
Application of range migration algorithms to imaging with a dynamic metasurface antenna
Laura Pulido-Mancera, Thomas Fromenteze, Timothy Sleasman, Michael Boyarsky, Mohammadreza F. Imani, Matthew Reynolds, and David Smith
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 33(10) 2082-2092 (2016) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF