Low-Cost Millimeter Wave Imaging Using a Commercial Plasma Display

The use of glow discharge detectors to detect millimeter wave radiation is well documented and work is starting of the development of focal plane arrays to produce 2D images. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using a low-cost commercial plasma display as an imager in the millimeter wave band. It shows that though the performance is not as good as that for individual glow discharge detectors, it is sufficiently good for short range imaging. This paper goes on to propose extending the modality to provide 3D images in near real time using each element of the array as a mixer in a frequency modulated continuous wave radar.