Aberration Effects of Planar Layers in Near-Field Multistatic Millimeter-Wave Imaging

This paper presents the analysis on the effects of aberration induced by planar layers in the near-field millimeter-wave imaging. A point spread function (PSF) simulator, based on the matched filtering method combined with ray tracing technique, is introduced to quantitatively investigate the effect of aberrations caused by multiple planar layers in between a multistatic aperture and an imaging target. Furthermore, based on the simulation results, we provide the relation between the thickness and refractive indices of aberrating layers and the positional error and brightness reduction in a reconstructed image. The presented simulator and theoretical analysis would provide a basis for further research on the aberration effects in millimeter-wave imaging for objects concealed within a thick and heterogenous medium.