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Determining the nominal body contour image using wideband millimeter-wave radar for characterizing person-worn threats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2021

Mohammad M. Tajdini Open the ORCID record for Mohammad M. Tajdini [Opens in a new window]  and
Carey M. Rappaport
Mohammad M. Tajdini*
Affiliation:
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA
Carey M. Rappaport
Affiliation:
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Mohammad M. Tajdini, E-mail: mmtajdini@gmail.com
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Abstract

Precise characterization of concealed person-worn objects will speed up the passenger screening process by reducing the rate of nuisance alarms, while also enhancing the airport security imaging systems. This paper presents an automatic, real-time method for wideband millimeter-wave radar identification of the nominal surface contours of the human body – even with affixed foreign objects or when a segment of the body cross-section is not captured by the radar – without relying on the body's bilateral symmetry. The developed method is verified experimentally when applied to the actual images generated by a laboratory airport scanning prototype developed recently by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Our method uses the noisy collection of radar cross-section reflectivity data to extract the main contours and estimates the nominal body surface cross-sections through fitting a small-term Fourier series of circumferential variation. This is a necessary step for accurate characterizing of concealed terrorist threat objects affixed to the body.

Keywords

Computational imagingmillimeter-waveremote sensinginverse scatteringradar signal processingFourier reconstructioncounterterrorism
Type
EuCAP 2020
Information
International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies , Volume 14 , Special Issue 6: EuCAP 2020 Special Issue , July 2022 , pp. 732 - 738
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the European Microwave Association

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