Investigation of a practical sparse array terahertz imaging sysytem for real-time 3-dimensional imaging applications

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K14995
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 21030:Measurement engineering-related
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Yi Li 大阪大学, 基礎工学研究科, 助教 (90803908)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: テラヘルツ波イメージング / フォトニクレーダ / 共鳴トンネルダイオード / 合成開口レーダ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The imaging techniques with RTD sensors and high-speed photonic radar were mainly investigated through this project. The single RTD transceiver was firstly introduced for THz imaging, which can greatly reduced the cost of THz imaging technique. However, due to the complicity of RTD device introduced in below and the limited cost, the research on realizing the RTD imaging array cannot be fully achieved and it is still undergoing with other project.
Alternatively, the high-resolution 3D imaging was enabled with photonic radar technique together with the SAR imaging technique at 300-GHz band. Comparing with the previous system, the data acquisition speed of ~200GHz bandwidth (which can provide millimeter order imaging resolution) reduced to ~1ms, which is crucially important for achieving real-time 3D imaging. Besides, the sparse array technique and algorithm are evaluated with numerical simulation.

Free Research Field

リモートセンシング

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の着目点は、現在発展しているテラヘルツ波技術をイメージング応用（セキュリティ、生産線の検査、リモートセンシングなど）に開きたいと思います。そのため、システムの低コストの目的で、本研究を展開しました。成果概要で紹介したように、高価な電子逓倍器の代わりに、共鳴トンネルダイオードや、光技術基ついた広帯域レーダシステムなどの手法を導入した。