Millimeter wave imaging with engineered point spread functions

We demonstrate experimentally the ability to shape the point spread function of a distributed-aperture millimeter-wave imaging system by modifying its aperture phase. We consider distributions on a regular hexagonal array and a nonredundant array. We also show how to exploit this capability to perform low-resolution analog image processing. A preliminary investigation of system performance reveals nonuniformity in amplitude response across the array is a major contributor to deviations from predicted point spread functions (PSFs). (C) 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). [DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.51.9.091606]