Compressive Sensing Techniques for mm-Wave Nondestructive Testing of Composite Panels

This paper presents imaging results from measurements of an industrially manufactured composite test panel, utilizing two introduced algorithms for data postprocessing. The system employs a planar near-field scanning setup for characterizing defects in composite panels in the 50-67-GHz band, and can be considered as a complementary diagnostic tool for nondestructive testing purposes. The introduced algorithms are based on the reconstruction of the illuminating source at the transmitter, enabling a separation of the sampled signal with respect to the location of its potential sources, the scatterers within the device under test or the transmitter. For the second algorithm, an L1-minimization problem formulation is introduced that enables compressive sensing techniques to be adapted for image retrieval. The algorithms are benchmarked against a more conventional imaging technique, based on the Fourier transform, and it is seen that the complete imaging system provides increased dynamic range, improved resolution, and reduced measurement time by removal of a reference measurement. Moreover, the system provides stable image quality over a range of frequencies.