Robotic Through-Wall Imaging: Radio-Frequency Imaging Possibilities with Unmanned Vehicles

Abstract

Using electromagnetic waves for sensing has been of interest to the research community for many years. More recently, sensing with lower frequencies, such as with radio waves and even with Wi-Fi, has become of interest due to factors like safety and availability of the transceivers. In particular, there has been a considerable interest in using radio-frequency (RF) signals to sense and obtain information about the environment in various contexts, such as imaging, localization, tracking, and occupancy estimation [1]-[10]. See-through imaging (also known as through-wall imaging) has, in particular, been of considerable interest to the research community. The ability to see through occluded objects can be beneficial to many applications, such as search and rescue, surveillance and security, archaeological discovery, detection/classification of occluded objects, and medical applications. Despite great interest in this area, however, see-through imaging is still a considerably challenging problem, especially with everyday RF signals.