| Although millimeter wave (mmW) imaging has developed rapidly over the last decade, there is still much to learn about the imaging process as a whole as well as millimeter waves themselves. Millimeter waves are the range of wavelengths that exist between one millimeter to one centimeter (hence the term "millimeter wave"). Where infrared and radio frequency imaging has achieved great results over the past fifty years with the military, millimeter wave imaging remains unexplored in comparison. As stated previously, millimeter wave imaging has come into the spotlight during the last ten years as another approach for imaging. And with each evolution of millimeter wave imaging technology comes the potential for more possibilities to be researched.;It is in this thesis that I present our own passive millimeter wave imager that images objects in the far field. The technology that is used for this imager is based on optical upconversion techniques, in which optical modulation is used with carrier suppression. I will also present the theoretical background of millimeter wave imaging, the operational requirements of the proposed architecture, the characterization of the millimeter wave image data, experimental results (images from the detector), and future work for the next iteration of the imager. To date, our system is capable of field testing, in which it has produced outstanding results for a relatively low-cost detector, and the results of that testing, as well as much more, are presented in this thesis. |
