Hybrid Physical and Geometrical Optics Method for Modeling Subsurface Imaging Using mmWave FMCW Radar

A hybrid physical and geometrical optics method is proposed to model the subsurface imaging using mmWave FMCW radar. Modeling of the wave propagation for subsurface imaging can improve the interpretation of acquired data and imaging results. Full-wave simulation is common in simulating wave propagation. However, when the frequency is high such as mmWave frequency, it is difficult to implement since it costs large computation resource and time. In this paper, the physical and geometrical optics are hybridized to simulate the wave propagation in subsurface imaging scenarios. In the proposed method, physical optics method is utilized to calculate the reflection from the object and geometrical optics method is utilized to calculate the transmission of the wave through object. By combining the results from physical and geometrical optics, the wave propagation in the subsurface imaging scenarios is simulated. The synthetic-aperture radar imaging is applied to the simulated data and the image is successfully reconstructed. Further, the experiment setup is developed and the comparison between simulation and experiment is carried out. The results demonstrated that the proposed simulation method can model the subsurface imaging with mmWave FMCW radar.