• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.357-361
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• 2011

Photon-counting sensing is a widely used technique for low-light-level imaging applications. This paper proposes a distance information extraction method with photon-counting passive sensing under low-lightlevel conditions. The photo-counting passive sensing combined with integral imaging generates a photon-limited elemental image array. Maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) is used to reconstruct the photon-limited image at certain depth levels. The distance information is extracted at the depth level that minimizes the sum of the standard deviation of the corresponding photo-events in the elemental image array. Experimental and simulation results confirm that the proposed method can extract the distance information of the object under low-light-level conditions.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.159-165
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• 2015

In this paper, we designed and tested of the passive millimeter-wave imaging system in near range. The proposed passive millimeter-wave imaging system consists two parts. The first part is a 94 GHz band millimeter imaging sensor which is coupled to an antenna, two LNAs, and a diode detector. The second part is a control unit. The control unit is consists of the 2-axes Cartesian robot, the data acquisition (DAQ), and imaging program. The 2-axes Cartesian robot should be able to scan a 2-D image of the metalic tools, IC card and plastic objects, with a raster scanning method. The passive millimeter-wave image of $20{\times}20$ pixels is acquired within less than 60s, and is immediately displayed and stored for post processing.In order to improve the image quality, interpolation methods are applied.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.155-170
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• 2020

Passive ranging is a critical part of machine vision measurement. Most of passive ranging methods based on machine vision use binocular technology which need strict hardware conditions and lack of universality. To measure the distance of an object placed on horizontal plane, we present a passive ranging method based on monocular vision system by smartphone. Experimental results show that given the same abscissas, the ordinatesis of the image points linearly related to their actual imaging angles. According to this principle, we first establish a depth extraction model by assuming a linear function and substituting the actual imaging angles and ordinates of the special conjugate points into the linear function. The vertical distance of the target object to the optical axis is then calculated according to imaging principle of camera, and the passive ranging can be derived by depth and vertical distance to the optical axis of target object. Experimental results show that ranging by this method has a higher accuracy compare with others based on binocular vision system. The mean relative error of the depth measurement is 0.937% when the distance is within 3 m. When it is 3-10 m, the mean relative error is 1.71%. Compared with other methods based on monocular vision system, the method does not need to calibrate before ranging and avoids the error caused by data fitting.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.44 no.3 s.357
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• pp.111-116
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• 2007

We have developed a passive millimeter wave (PMMW) imaging system with two-dimensional imaging arrays. For the imaging system we achieved single-substrate imaging-array element which include all necessary component such as Fermi tapered slot antenna (TSA), a balun, LNA's and a detector circuit on it. Two-dimensional arrays for real-time imaging at the 35 GHz band are currently under development. We will be able to make an advanced PMMW image system based on our system with the $2\times2$ imaging array in the near future.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.21-24
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• 2017

Passive millimeter wave (MMW) imaging penetrates clothing to detect concealed objects. The distances extraction to the concealed objects is critical for the security and defense. In this paper, we address a passive stereo 3 mm MMW imaging system to extract the longitudinal distance to the concealed object. The concealed object area is segmented and extracted by the k-means clustering algorithm with splitting initialization. The distance to the concealed object is estimated by the corresponding centers of the segmented objects. In the experimental two pairs (each pair for horizontal and vertical polarization) of stereo MMW images are obtained to estimate distances to concealed objects.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.44 no.3 s.357
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• pp.105-110
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• 2007

We have built the millimeter-wave passive imaging system with a lens and mechanical scan antenna. The lens was designed based on optical theory in order to focus millimeter-wane. A full image was taken from image points scanned by Placing antenna at the representative focal plane selectively. An integrated antenna array device for low-loss and low-noise with the array of 4 by 1, where components such as antenna, balun, MMIC, and detector were assembled on a sin91e substrate, and a fermi tapered slot antenna with high-gain and low-side lobe were used for elements of this millimeter-wave passive imaging system. Two dimensional antenna arrangement on focal plane was achieved in this imaging system.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.450-458
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• 2019

Passive cavitation imaging method is used to observe the ultrasonic waves generated when a group of bubbles collapses. A problem with passive cavitation imaging is a low resolution and large side lobe levels. Since ultrasound signals generated by passive cavitation take the form of a pulse, the amplitude distribution of signals received across the receive channels varies depending on the direction of incidence. Both the centroid and flatness were calculated to determine weights at imaging points in order to discriminate between the main and side lobe signals from the signal amplitude distribution of the received channel data and to reduce the side lobe levels. The centroid quantifies how the channel data are distributed across the receive channel, and the flatness measures the variance of the channel data. We applied the centroid weight and the flatness to the passive cavitation image constructed using the delay-and-sum focusing and minimum variance beamforming methods to improve the image quality. Using computer simulation and experiment, we show that the application of weighting in delay-and-sum and minimum variance beamforming reduces side lobe levels.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.1-7
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• 2008

In this paper, we have designed a millimeter-wave passive imaging sensor that is able to use remote sensing and security applications. The brightness temperature distribution of a scene is measured with a antenna at an angular resolution of $3^{\circ}$. The sensor is controlled by a PC, achieving a fast performance by using a pan/tilter. The pan/tilter should be able to scan a 2-D image of the scene, with a linear raster scan pattern. The mechanical scans in azimuth and elevation whereby an image of $20{\times}20$ pixels is acquired within less than 400s. Raw images are immediately displayed and stored for postprocessing.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.67-70
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• 2016

This paper discusses a graphic user interface(GUI) for the concealed target segmentation. The human subject hiding a metal gun is captured by the passive millimeter wave(MMW) imaging system. The imaging system operates on the regime of 8 mm wavelength. The MMW image is analyzed by the multi-level segmentation to segment and identify a concealed weapon under clothing. The histogram of the passive MMW image is modeled with the Gaussian mixture distribution. LBG vector quantization(VQ) and expectation and maximization(EM) algorithms are sequentially applied to segment the body and the object area. In the experiment, the GUI is implemented by the MFC(Microsoft Foundation Class) and the OpenCV(Computer Vision) libraries and tested in real-time showing the efficiency of the system.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.73-80
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• 2005

We investigated the activation of the cerebral cortex during active movement, passive movement, and functional electrical stimulation (FES), which was provided on wrist extensor muscles. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study was performed on 5 healthy volunteers. Tasks were the extension of right wrist by active movement, passive movement, and FES at the rate of .5 Hz. The regions of interest were measured in primary motor cortex (M1), primary somatosensory cortex (SI), secondary somatosensory cortex (SII), and supplementary motor area (SMA). We found that the contralateral SI and SII were significantly activated by all of three tasks. The additional activation was shown in the areas of ipsilateral S1 (n=2), and contralateral (n=1) or ipsilateral (n=2) SII, and bilateral SMA (n=3) by FES. Ipsilateral M1 (n=1), and contralateral (n=1) or ipsilateral SII (n=1), and contralateral SMA (n=1) were activated by active movement. Also, Contralateral SMA (n=3) was activated by passive movement. The number of activated pixels on SM1 by FES ($12{\pm}4$ pixels) was smaller than that by active movement ($18{\pm}4$ pixels) and nearly the same as that by passive movement ($13{\pm}4$ pixels). Findings reveal that active movement, passive movement, and FES had a direct effect on cerebral cortex. It suggests that above modalities may have the potential to facilitate brain plasticity, if applied with the refined-specific therapeutic intervention for brain-injured patients.