SUMIRAD - a low-cost fast millimeter-wave radiometric imaging system

For many military or peace-keeping operations it is necessary to provide better situational awareness to the commander of a vehicle with respect to possible threats in his local environment (predominantly ahead), at a distance of a few ten to a few hundred meters. As a beneficial part of a suitable multi-sensor system, an imaging radiometer with a sufficiently high frame rate and field of view is considered. The paper describes the challenges for the design of a vehicle-based imaging radiometer system at W band. The construction is briefly outlined and imaging results for several situations are presented