Radar Imaging in ANSYS

Electronics Desktop
Radar Imaging in ANSYS Electronics Desktop

• Imaging Overview
‐ Radar Imaging Techniques Cover in This Presentation
➢ Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Microwave/Millimeter wave holography
➢ Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR)
‐ Radar Imaging in ANSYS Electronics Desktop 2019
➢ Numerical Techniques
➢ Large Scale Distributed Solve for Efficient Simulation
➢ Dynamic/Parametric Geometry
➢ ACT Extensions for Electronics Desktop Integrated Post Processing of ISAR and Range Profiles
• ISAR Imaging of Electrically Large Vehicles
• SAR Based Radar Imaging
‐ 2D millimeter wave imaging of electrically large targets
‐ 3D millimeter wave imaging of electrically large targets
➢ Example: Enhanced Detection of Concealed Weapons
➢ Example: Dynamic Gesture with Posable Hand

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 Radar Imaging Techniques

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 SAR Overview
• Synthetic aperture radar
‐ Signal processing technique used to reconstruct
radar image of targets
‐ Typically target is fixed while radar antenna fsweep
movement forms synthetic aperture
• This presentation mainly focuses on a
millimeter-wave imaging technique described
in:
D.M. Sheen , D.L. McMakin , T.E. Hall, "Three-dimensional millimeter-wave
imaging for concealed weapon detection", IEEE Transactions on Microwave
Theory and Techniques, Volume: 49 , Issue: 9 , Sep 2001.

• Example Applications:
‐ Airport security screening
‐ Ground Penetrating Radar Raster scan antenna position over aperture.
Observe scattered fields at ever point
‐ Terrain mapping
ISAR Overview
• Inverse synthetic aperture radar
− Signal processing technique used to reconstruct radar image of targets
− Generated from frequency dependent scattered fields at different look angles
− Typically radar antenna is fixed and target has some known or unknown rotation
• Example Applications
− Radar Systems
− Target Classification
− Identify scattering centers
Radar Imaging in ANSYS
Electronics Desktop 2019
 Electronics Solver Solutions: Numerical Techniques

ANSYS Domain Decomposition and Hybrid Methods

• SBR+ Enables Efficiently

Large Scale Simulation of
Radar Imaging Applications

Savant: Shooting and Bouncing Rays

Electrical Size
The ANSYS Solution
HFSS-IE & FEBI

HFSS: Finite Elements

Geometry and Material Complexity

SBR Methodology: Shooting and Bouncing Rays

What is SBR ?
• SBR = Shooting and Bouncing Rays
– Asymptotic technique
• Complementary capability to HFSS
• Electrically large platforms (i.e., many wavelengths in dimension)
– Extends physical optics (PO) to multiple bounces with GO ray tracing

scattered fields
Total Field = Incident Field + Scattered Fields
SBR+ Methodology: Shooting and Bouncing Rays +

The ANSYS SBR+ Technique

• Build on SBR with additional physics
– Physical Theory of Diffraction (PTD)
– Creeping Wave
– Uniform Theory of Diffraction (UTD)
SBR
– Curved Surface Divergence Factor

SBR+
SBR+ Methodology: Shooting and Bouncing Rays +

• Acceleration
– Efficient simulation of electrically large
structures
– Multicore, GPU and MPI for massive
acceleration
– Algorithmic acceleration
– Low memory requirement
• Imaging applications may require a large number
of simulations
– SBR+ Solver can efficiently solve electrically
large and complex problems
• Multiple scan/observation angles
• Broadband frequency sweeps
• Parametric variations of radar positions
 Large Scale Distributed Solve for Efficient Simulation

Distributed Solve Option Head Node

• Run multiple parametric variations in parallel

– Nearly linear scaling with cores
– Important for quick simulation of imaging applications
• Can be used in combination with HPC
– Multiplier license for parametric sweeps
• Effectively multiplies the base license requirements when running
parametric variations
• Low license requirements to utilize a high number of compute resources
• Large Scale DSO supports more than 100k simulation results Variation 1 Variation 2 Variation 3 Variation 4
that may be required for complex imaging scenarios
– Reduces burden of post processing results
– Excellent scaling to very high number of simulations and results Distributed Solve*
45 Variations

32 DSO Points 27x DSO

Serial Sweep 1x (Baseline) Distributed Solve

Example of Near Linear Scaling with DSO

ACT Extensions for Integrated Post Processing of Radar Images

• Application Customization Toolkit

‐ Available from ANSYS Appstore
‐ https://catalog.ansys.com/?q=radar
• Supports Automated Setup of Project
for different imaging and radar
processing
• Post Processing of ISAR from HFSS
Simulation Results

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Dynamic/Parametric Geometry Blender Animation

• ANSYS Electronics Desktop Geometry

‐ Supports fully parametric models
➢ Geometry, radar/antenna positions, materials…etc all directly
parameterized with project
➢ Easily run multiple parametric studies
• Dynamic Geometry Support using User Defined
Models (UDM)
‐ Example: Poseable human hand
➢ Blender animation tool used for pose/animation
▪ https://www.blender.org/
➢ UDM used to establish dynamic CAD model
➢ Frames defined in animation tool can be linked to HFSS
project with time parameter controlling position

HFSS Model
Dynamic Model Example: Radar Range Profile
Waterfall/Stacked Range Profile of walking person. Simulation
shows relative distances as body changes positions

Range profile versus Time/Position

Position (time)
Observation Direction

Range (meters)
SAR Based Radar Imaging
Simulation Overview – SAR Based Approach

Excited Rays From Antenna Source Resulting Currents on Target Fields observed back at source

This image is generated by running

Pixel at X,Y position resulting from 1 3600 simulations (60 x 60 positions)
simulation
• Asymptotic Methods like SBR makes
running these simulation practical
Nx • Full wave solution like HFSS would be
Ny possibly, but time prohibitive
• Scattered fields versus position
(including frequency sweep) extracted
Magnitude of Reflected energy at each
for each position in aperture
antenna position (Raw Data)
Imaging Algorithm Overview* *D.M. Sheen , D.L. McMakin , T.E. Hall, "Three-dimensional millimeter-wave imaging for concealed
weapon detection", IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Volume: 49 , Issue: 9 , Sep
2001.

Savant Results Spatial Frequency Domain Final Image

◘ ◘ ◘

2D Fourier Transform of Multiple by Phase Inverse 3D FFT to

Scattered Fields – Factor – reconstruct 3D
Wavefront decomposed into Back propagates the wave Image –
plane waves front from the aperture Converts spatial
to the target location frequency domain
into spatial domain
Example Results – 2D Image Reconstruction: “F”
Solution in 4 minutes with 8 parallel tasks

Hologram (scattered fields Reconstructed image from

calculated using Savant over Savant field solution
aperture plane)
Example Result – 2D Image Reconstruction: “ANSYS”

Solution in 20 minutes with 8 parallel tasks

Hologram (scattered fields Reconstructed image from

calculated using Savant over Savant field solution
aperture plane)
 3D Image Reconstruction

• Using simulation to investigate impact of antenna system changes on

image quality
– Broadband frequency sweep allows us to resolve depth, or generate a 3D image from
scattered field data, this captured depth is a function or our antenna system bandwidth
– Depth Resolution is a function of bandwidth

Test Project Geometry: Used to demonstrate

impact of bandwidth on image quality
 3D Image Reconstruction
Focus @ Front “F” Focus @ Center of Sphere Focus @ Back “F:
Distance

Sweep Focus Plane (scale not

normalized)
3D Image with Depth
 Depth Resolution – Bandwidth
When our bandwidth is
too small, we start to
loose the ability to focus
the entire 3D image.
Although we would still be
able to focus on set Z
distances

Bandwidth – 5GHz Bandwidth – 6GHz Bandwidth – 20GHz

δz = 30mm δz = 25mm δz = 7.5mm
*Some spatial resolution is also lost due to a lower center frequency being used for smaller bandwidth
Example Image: Human Body with Object Detection
εr = 18
σ = 25 s/m

PEC

1.8 meter

25cm from aperture to “F”

1 meter
Example Image: Human Body Mark Jones, David Sheen, and Thomas Hall, “Enhanced Detection of
Concealed Weapons”, ANSYS ADVANTAGE, Volume XI, Issue 3, 2017

• Reconstructed Image
– 30GHz Bandwidth
– 60-degree antenna beamwidth
• Shows excellent depth resolution and body
illumination
• How does beamwidth and bandwidth impact
image quality on human body model?
Example Image: Bandwidth and Beamwidth Impact on Image
Quality

• 5GHz Bandwidth • 30GHz Bandwidth

• Antenna Element Beamwidth: 60-Degrees • Antenna Element Beamwidth: 20-Degrees

Mark Jones, David Sheen, and Thomas Hall, “Enhanced Detection of

Concealed Weapons”, ANSYS ADVANTAGE, Volume XI, Issue 3, 2017
 Example Image: Impact of Dielectric Layers on Imaging

Hidden Object

Clothing Concealing Object

Dielectric properties, including loss, thickness, multiple
Scale not fixed so focus outside of
layers…etc. can be included in SBR simulation object appears to be noisy
Example: Dynamic Gesture with Posable Hand

• Imaging application may require dynamic scenarios

where movement is capture
‐ Dynamic scenario may require multiple snapshots in time
to be analyzed
‐ Parametric models can enable no only capturing individual
frames, but also the movement
➢ Micro doppler signatures could also be modeled
➢ Motion distortion
➢ Frame by frame animation
Example of radar imaging application as seen
• Example shown on next slide demonstrates how the 3D on Googles Project Soli (not simulated here,
holographic imaging algorithm can be applied to a only shown as example)
parametric hand model while gesturing https://atap.google.com/soli/

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 3D Rendering of Reconstructed Image
Example: Dynamic Hand Gesture

Original Blender Animation HFSS Simulated Results

Reconstructed Image
Parametric HFSS Model
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Example: Dynamic Hand Gesture – Field Overlay

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Radar Imaging in ANSYS Electronics Desktop

• Many radar imaging applications are possible with ANSYS HFSS

• ANSYS Electronics Desktop allows full parametric models for efficient setup of different scenarios
‐ Pre/Post processing of ISAR images is enabled directly in the desktop environment using freely available ACT
Extensions
• Efficient parallel computing scaling allows complex imaging scenarios to be simulated
• HFSS with SBR+ enables efficient large scale simulation with minimal compute resources

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Resources/Citations

• Mark Jones, David Sheen, and Thomas Hall, “Enhanced Detection of Concealed
Weapons”, ANSYS ADVANTAGE, Volume XI, Issue 3, 2017
• D.M. Sheen , D.L. McMakin , T.E. Hall, "Three-dimensional millimeter-
wave imaging for concealed weapon detection", IEEE Transactions on
Microwave Theory and Techniques, Volume: 49 , Issue: 9 , Sep 2001.
• Caner Özdemir,“Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging with MATLAB
Algorithms”, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012
ISAR Imaging of Electrically
Large Vehicles
ISAR
• Inverse synthetic aperture radar
− Basic overview of simulation and post processing
• Simulation Setup
− Define plane wave or Tx/Rx pair excitation
− Simulation including frequency sweep versus look/observation
angle
− IFFT of scattered fields to view ISAR image

𝒙𝒎𝒂𝒙 𝒚𝒎𝒂𝒙
𝑵𝒙 = 𝑵𝒚 =
∆𝒙 ∆𝒚
Down Range Extents: 𝒙𝒎𝒂𝒙
𝒄𝟎 λ𝒄
Down Range Resolution: ∆𝒙 ∆𝒇 = ∆𝝋 =
𝟐 ∙ 𝒙𝒎𝒂𝒙 𝟐 ∙ 𝒚𝒎𝒂𝒙

Cross Range Extents: 𝒚𝒎𝒂𝒙 𝑩𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒘𝒊𝒅𝒕𝒉 = ∆𝒇 ∙ 𝑵𝒙 IFFT

Cross Range Resolution: ∆𝒚 𝑨𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝑨𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒆 = ∆𝝋 ∙ 𝑵𝒚
Radar Simulation
Requirements Settings
 ISAR Imaging Example: Semi-Truck
Scenario 1: Closed Trailer Scenario 2: Open Trailer

4000λ @ 76.5GHz Multiple Bounce Resulting in Ghost Targets

ISAR Analysis in 10min using HFSS-SBR+

Vertical supports acting as corner reflectors

Frequency = 76.5GHz
Down Range Resolution = 0.1meter
Cross Range Resolution = 0.1meter
Bandwidth = 1500MHz @ 200 steps
Aspect Angle = 1.1˚ @ 100 steps
ISAR Image Generation: SBR and Full Wave Comparison
• ISAR image using SBR+ and Full-Wave solution are nearly identical

ISAR Image Generated using ISAR Image Generated using

SBR+ Simulation Results IE Simulation Results

Plate 1

Plate 2
Plate 4

Plate 3
Frequency = 5 GHz
Down Range Resolution = 0.1meter
Cross Range Resolution = 0.1meter
Bandwidth = 1500MHz @ 71 steps
Aspect Angle = 17˚ @ 51 steps
ISAR Imaging Examples
Electronics Desktop and RCS

• HFSS fields data processed to produce ISAR animation