Through-the-wall surveillance with millimeter-wave LFMCW radars

Abstract

The use of millimeter-wave radars allows a weight and size reduction of circuits and antennas, which is an important characteristic for Through-the-Wall Surveillance (TWS) applications. Furthermore, when using the millimeter-wave band, a large amount of bandwidth can be easily transmitted, given that the relative bandwidth is smaller. This leads to a high range resolution that allows for the discrimination of several targets that are very close in range, e.g., inside a room. The azimuth resolution is also improved due to the availability in this band of directive antennas with small dimensions. This paper studies the feasibility of using a millimeter-wave linear frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar in a TWS application. A TWS experiment in a real scenario has been done to demonstrate the validity of the theoretical analysis.