Design of a Two-Receiver Interferometer on Motorized Tracks

A 94.8 GHz interferometric imaging system utilizing aperture synthesis and tomography is developed for the Center for Advanced Sensor and Communication Antennas. Whereas typical interferometer designs employ multiple antennas to synthesize an aperture for image reconstruction, this unique interferometer will reproduce a scene\u27s brightness temperature with only two antennas. To achieve this, the aperture synthesis is done with one antenna remaining stationary while the second antenna is moved at discrete increments along two controlled tracks. The two signals received by the antennas are cross-correlated to produce measured visibility function samples. The visibility samples reconstruct the scene brightness temperature through an inverse Fourier transform relationship