Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

"Microwave and millimeter wave synthetic aperture radar (SAR)-based imaging techniques, used for nondestructive evaluation (NDE), have shown tremendous usefulness for the inspection of a wide variety of complex composite materials and structures. Studies were performed for the optimization of uniform and nonuniform sampling (i.e., measurement positions) since existing formulations of SAR resolution and sampling criteria do not account for all of the physical characteristics of a measurement (e.g., 2D limited-size aperture, electric field decreasing with distance from the measuring antenna, etc.) and nonuniform sampling criteria supports sampling below the Nyquist rate. The results of these studies demonstrate optimum sampling given design requirements that fully explain resolution dependence on sampling criteria. This work was then extended to manually-selected and nonuniformly distributed samples such that the intelligence of the user may be utilized by observing SAR images being updated in real-time. Furthermore, a novel reconstruction method was devised that uses components of the SAR algorithm to advantageously exploit the inherent spatial information contained in the data, resulting in a superior final SAR image. Furthermore, better SAR images can be obtained if multiple frequencies are utilized as compared to single frequency. To this end, the design of an existing microwave imaging array was modified to support multiple frequency measurement. Lastly, the data of interest in such an array may be corrupted by coupling among elements since they are closely spaced, resulting in images with an increased level of artifacts. A method for correcting or pre-processing the data by using an adaptation of correlation canceling technique is presented as well"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Zoughi, R.

Committee Member(s)

DuBroff, Richard E.
Grant, Steven L.
Zheng, Y. Rosa
McMillin, Bruce M.

Department(s)

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Degree Name

Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering

Sponsor(s)

National Science Foundation (U.S.)

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Fall 2013

Pagination

xii, 146 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 138-145).

Rights

© 2013 Joseph Tobias Case, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Signal processing
Microwave imaging -- Computer simulation
Microwave devices -- Design -- Computer simulation
Millimeter wave devices -- Design -- Computer simulation
Synthetic aperture radar

Thesis Number

T 10385

Electronic OCLC #

870649948

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