Affine Virtual Arrays for Millimeter-Wave Imaging and Metrology

Imaging systems are ubiquitous in the world, from complex mammalian eyes to infrared sensors in snakes, from selfie cameras on smartphones to the VLBI telescope system that took an image of a black hole, from MRIs and X-rays to microscopes and telescopes, they allow for the exploration of the universe and the revelation of the invisible. The most fascinating systems among these are the ones that allow observers to see beyond the limits of the naked eye. An imaging radar is one such technology-familiar to travelers who have stood in an airport scanner with their arms raised. Unlike other imaging methods, radar can penetrate materials, operate at long ranges, and does not use hazardous ionizing radiation, making it ideal for applications such as concealed weapons detection, autonomous navigation, non-destructive testing, and remote sensing.

Despite their potential, existing imaging radar systems experience a cost-speed trade-off that has limited their development and widespread adoption. High-resolution imaging radars traditionally require large, densely sampled arrays, expensive RF hardware, or slow mechanical scanning. In this talk, Aditya Varma Muppala will introduce affine virtual arrays, a technique that enables a single radar element to generate 10,000 virtual elements in real-time, breaking the cost-speed trade-off. Based on this idea, he will demonstrate several imaging radar systems and experiments. Muppala will then show how this same idea of affine virtual arrays can be extended to perform fast spherical near-field measurements for phased array calibration. Lastly, he will introduce new ideas related to real-time virtual array generation for both imaging and antenna measurements.

Speaker: Aditya Varma Muppala, UC Berkeley

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