Improving the quality of active millimeter wave standoff imaging by incorporating the cross-polarized scattering wave.

In this paper, we study the feasibility of incorporating the cross-polarized scattered wave in active standoff millimeter-wave imaging in order to improve the edge detection and background suppression for metallic objects. By analyzing the scattering from a perfectly conducting (PEC) patch of a simple geometrical shape we show that the edge diffraction is the major source of cross-polarized scattering. A similar scattering behavior is also observed for a PEC patch placed on a dielectric medium.