Indoor Synthetic Aperture Radar Measurements of Point-Like Targets Using a Wheeled Mobile Robot

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on a wheeled mobile robot for indoor mapping, demonstrating how SAR can enhance resolution with low-cost sensors despite localization challenges.

Contribution

It quantifies the maximum aperture length achievable with a mobile robot SAR setup and discusses key challenges in robotic millimeter-wave SAR imaging.

Findings

Maximum synthesizable aperture length identified

Insights into localization challenges for SAR imaging

Potential for high-resolution indoor mapping

Abstract

Small, low-cost radar sensors offer a lighting independent sensing capability for indoor mobile robots that is useful for localization and mapping. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) offers an attractive way to increase the angular resolution of small radar sensors for use on mobile robots to generate high-resolution maps of the indoor environment. This work quantifies the maximum synthesizable aperture length of our mobile robot measurement setup using radar-inertial odometry localization and offers insights into challenges for robotic millimeter-wave SAR imaging.