High Resolution MIMO X-band Radar for Side-looking Anomaly Detection

Ground based, mobile surface anomaly sensing and detection is a critical area of research in explosive hazard detection as well as local situational awareness and even autonomous operations. Increasingly, achieving reliable detection is coming to rely on a suite of different (often orthogonal) sensing modalities from optical to infrared to lidar and radar. Radar is of particular interest because it offers advantages when attempting to detect obscured surface anomalies and has the potential for large observation areas. Radar's chief disadvantage in this context is that limited physical antenna aperture degrades the spatial localization of scattering returns. This is particularly troubling in highly cluttered surface environments. To address this shortcoming of spatial localization of scattering returns, this paper discusses the use of a MIMO X-band radar system configured in a high-resolution side-looking instantiation. By configuring the system this way it can be operated in a traditional stripmap synthetic aperture mode and since it is a MIMO array it has vertical aperture allowing for three-dimensional imagery to be formed. This paper details system elements, configuration and operation of a high resolution ground based, mobile MIMO X-band radar for side-looking anomaly detection. The system operates in X-band and utilizes a digitally synthesized frequency modulated continuous waveform. The system has previously been configured for forward looking mobile anomaly detection. The work presented in this paper is concerned with synthesizer and radio frequency electronics upgrades, side-looking specific configuration issues and image formation issues. Example side-looking three-dimensional imagery is shown using canonical calibration targets.