Radomes protecting sensitive radar, navigational, and communications equipment of, e.g., aircraft, are strongly exposed to the environment and have to withstand harsh weather conditions and potential impacts. Besides their significance to the structural integrity of the radomes, it is often crucial to optimize the composite structures for best possible radio performance. Hence, there exists a significant interest in non-destructive testing techniques, which can be used for defect inspection of radomes in field use as well as for quality inspection during the manufacturing process. Contactless millimeter-wave and terahertz imaging techniques provide millimeter resolution and have the potential to address both application scenarios. We report on our development of a three-dimensional (3D) terahertz imaging system for radome inspection during industrial manufacturing processes. The system was designed for operation within a machining center for radome manufacturing. It simultaneously gathers terahertz depth information in adjacent frequency ranges, from 70 to 110 GHz and from 110 to 170 GHz by combining two frequency modulated continuous-wave terahertz sensing units into a single measurement device. Results from spiraliform image acquisition of a radome test sample demonstrate the successful integration of the measurement system.
Imaging systems operating in the sub-terahertz frequency range have proven to be highly attractive devices for non-destructive testing applications. Especially frequency modulated system concepts have shown a great potential for volume inspection in industrial process and quality control, but often lack fast image acquisition times. We report on the development of a line array system for fast sub-terahertz imaging applications. The realized system employs a sparse array consisting of 12 emitters and 12 heterodyne receivers and operates in the W frequency band between 75 GHz and 110 GHz. The applied stepped-frequency continuous-wave radar concept provides 35 GHz modulation bandwidth for fast volume inspections of large test objects in combination with a band-conveyor
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