Polarization diversity in Ultra-Wideband imaging systems

This paper presents an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) indoor imaging system with dual-orthogonal polarized antennas. Both the measurement setup and the algorithm implemented for data processing are introduced. In the presented approach, a 4×1 vertically oriented antenna array is used in order to perform 2D scan. For 3D imaging, single antennas are applied. Emphasis is given to the polarization diversity, through which additional properties of objects such as form, surface structure and orientation are investigated. In this way, some objects are detected, which may remain invisible for single-polarized systems. In addition, the presented approach extends UWB-Radar/Imaging with very high resolution to a high-end system with robust target detection, while providing extensive information about the environment. Such a system can be of great interest in applications such as indoor search-and-rescue operations, motion tracking and indoor navigation.