Imaging peculiarities of MMW quasi-optical systems based on focal plane antenna arrays

Imaging peculiarities of millimeter wave (MMW) quasi-optical focal plane imagers based on using antenna receiving arrays are studied. It is theoretically shown that their spatial resolution can be restricted by properties of the basic antenna used for the receiving array. In this work, the transfer function of the receiver antenna is used to reveal the ability of the array to resolve different spatial frequencies of MMW images. Imager spatial responses on periodical test objects were experimentally obtained for two types of imager antenna arrays. Spatial asymmetry of the imager responses and influence of antenna receiver on imaging peculiarities of the imager as a whole are experimentally shown for both of the arrays.