Robot controlled data acquisition system for microwave imaging

In this paper an experimental prototype of a robot controlled data acquisition system for microwave imaging is presented, where the transmitting and receiving antennas are immersed in a water-tank. The scattered field from the object under test is acquired by using the robot and scanning a single receiving antenna in cylindrical or half spherical coordinates, while the transmitting antenna is fixed at one position with possibilities to be manually moved to different positions. Careful design and construction of the system has given accurate measurements of incident and total field with a SNR of 45 dB. A validation of the robot system is performed by comparing measured and computed data for a sunflower oil object.