Real-time and high-transmission middle-infrared optical imaging system based on a pixel-wise metasurface micro-polarization array

Real-time polarization medium-wave infrared(MIR)optical imaging systems enable the acquisition of infrared and polarization information for a target.At present,real-time polarization MIR devices face the following problems:poor real-time performance,low transmission and high requirements for fabrication and integration.Herein,we aim to improve the performance of real-time polarization imaging systems in the MIR waveband and solve the above-mentioned defects.Therefore,we propose a MIR polarization imaging system to achieve real-time polarization-modulated imaging with high transmission as well as improved performance based on a pixel-wise metasurface micro-polarization array(PMMPA).The PMMPA element comprises several linear polarization(LP)filters with different polarization angles.The optimization results demonstrate that the transmittance of the center field of view for the LP filters is up to 77%at a wavelength of4.0μm and an extinction ratio of 88 d B.In addition,a near-diffraction-limited real-time MIR imaging optical system is designed with a field of view of 5°and an F-number of 2.The simulation results show that an MIR polarization imaging system with excellent real-time performance and high transmission is achieved by using the optimized PMMPA element.Therefore,the method is compatible with the available optical system design technologies and provides a way to realize real-time polarization imaging in MIR wavebands.

Multiple interferences suppression with space-polarization null-decoupling for polarimetric array

The adaptive digital beamforming technique in the space-polarization domain suppresses the interference with forming the coupling nulls of space and polarization domain.When there is the interference in mainlobe,it will cause serious mainlobe distortion,that the target detection suffers from.To overcome this problem and make radar cope with the complex multiple interferences scenarios,we propose a multiple mainlobe and/or sidelobe interferences suppression method for dual polarization array radar.Specifically,the proposed method consists of a signal preprocessing based on the proposed angle estimation with degree of polarization(DoP),and a filtering criterion based on the proposed linear constraint.The signal preprocessing provides the accurate estimated parameters of the interference,which contributes to the criterion for null-decoupling in the space-polarization domain of mainlobe.The proposed method can reduce the mainlobe distortion in the space-polarization domain while suppressing the multiple mainlobe and/or sidelobe interferences.The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulations.

Fast PARAFAC decomposition with application to polarization sensitive array parameter estimations

In tensor theory, the parallel factorization （PARAFAC）decomposition expresses a tensor as the sum of a set of rank-1tensors. By carrying out this numerical decomposition, mixedsources can be separated or unknown system parameters can beidentified, which is the so-called blind source separation or blindidentification. In this paper we propose a numerical PARAFACdecomposition algorithm. Compared to traditional algorithms, wespeed up the decomposition in several aspects, i.e., search di-rection by extrapolation, suboptimal step size by Gauss-Newtonapproximation, and linear search by n steps. The algorithm is ap-plied to polarization sensitive array parameter estimation to showits usefulness. Simulations verify the correctness and performanceof the proposed numerical techniques.

STUDY ON MONOPULSE ANGLE MEASUREMENT METHOD BASED ON VIRTUAL POLARIZATION MATCHING

A monopulse angle measurement method for polarization array radar is studied in this paper.The receiving signal model is established and then a monopulse angle measurement method based on virtual polarization matching is proposed.To analyze the estimation performance,the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound(CRLB)of angle estimation is derived.Both theoretical analysis and simulation show that:firstly,the proposed method is superior to the traditional angle measurement methods based on the single polarization.Secondly,the performance of the new method is unrelated to the echo polarization.Thirdly,angle estimation of this method is asymptotically optimal.The results show that this method has great potential to be used in polarization array radar.

DOA and polarization estimation via signal reconstruction with linear polarization-sensitive arrays

This paper addresses the problem of direction-of-arrival （DOA） and polarization estima- tion with polarization sensitive arrays （PSA）, which has been a hot topic in the area of array signal processing during the past two or three decades. The sparse Bayesian learning （SBL） technique is introduced to exploit the sparsity of the incident signals in space to solve this problem and a new method is proposed by reconstructing the signals from the array outputs first and then exploit- ing the reconstructed signals to realize parameter estimation. Only 1-D searching and numerical calculations are contained in the proposed method, which makes the proposed method computa- tionally much efficient. Based on a linear array consisting of identically structured sensors, the proposed method can be used with slight modifications in PSA with different polarization structures. It also performs well in the presence of coherent signals or signals with different degrees of polarization. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the parameter estimation precision of the proposed method.

Cramér-Rao bound for multiple parameters estimation using a polarization sensitive array

In this paper, new Cramér-Rao lower bounds （CRB） of the estimates of frequencies, two-dimensional arrival angles and polarization parameters of multiple incident signals are derived for a polarization sensitive array. The incident sources have distinct carrier-frequencies, in contrast to the modeling of all sources to be at the same known carrier-frequency, which has been investigated in the existing research literature on the Cramér-Rao bounds （CRB） for polarization sensitive direction finding. The derived CRBs are compact closed-form expressions and applicable to an arbitrary array geometry. Numerical examples and analysis of some special cases provide insights into the fact that the estimation accuracy of all parameters is enhanced with the increasing signal-to-noise ratio （SNR） and number of snapshots. In addition, they are hardly influenced by the sampling frequency and independent of the initial phase of incident sources. These insights offer guidelines to the system engineer on how to improve parameters＇ estimation accuracy.

Joint frequency,2-D DOA,and polarization estimation using parallel factor analysis

This paper proposes a new algorithm for joint frequency, two-dimensional （2-D） directions-of-arrival （DOA）, and polarization estimation using parallel factor （PARAFAC） analysis model and cumulant. The proposed algorithm designs a new array configuration, and extends the PARAFAC analysis model from the common data-domain and subspace-domain to the cumulant one, and forms three-way arrays by using the three cumulant matrices obtained from the properly chosen dipole outputs, and analyzes the uniqueness of low-rank decomposition of the three-way arrays, and then jointly estimates the source parameters via the low-rank decomposition of the constructed PARAFAC model. In comparison with the conventional methods, the proposed method alleviates the aperture loss, and avoids pairing parameter. Finally, the simulation results are presented to validate the performance of the proposed method.

Source localization using a non-cocentered orthogonal loop and dipole (NCOLD) array

A uniform array of scalar-sensors with intersensor spacings over a large aperture size generally offers enhanced resolution and source localization accuracy,but it may also lead to cyclic ambiguity.By exploiting the polarization information of impinging waves,an electromagnetic vector-sensor array outperforms the unpolarized scalar-sensor array in resolving this cyclic ambiguity.However,the electromagnetic vector-sensor array usually consists of cocentered orthogonal loops and dipoles（COLD）,which is easily subjected to mutual coupling across these cocentered dipoles/loops.As a result,the source localization performance of the COLD array may substantially degrade rather than being improved.This paper proposes a new source localization method with a non-cocentered orthogonal loop and dipole（NCOLD）array.The NCOLD array contains only one dipole or loop on each array grid,and the intersensor spacings are larger than a half-wavelength.Therefore,unlike the COLD array,these well separated dipoles/loops minimize the mutual coupling effects and extend the spatial aperture as well.With the NCOLD array,the proposed method can effciently exploit the polarization information to offer high localization precision.