Estimating Moving Targets Behind Reinforced Walls Using Radar

We consider the estimation of moving targets located behind concrete walls reinforced with metallic bars, using radar measurements. The periodic structure of the rebar severely attenuates and distorts transmitted waveforms, which produces defocused images with ghost target estimates. We apply beamforming to estimate permittivity and thickness of the wall and number and position of the targets. The proposed solution is based on accurate physical models calculated using the method of moments. We show that the estimation is significantly improved by modeling the waveform distortion due to the bars. The resulting images are focused and clearly represent the contours of the targets. The algorithm is robust to the ambiguities in bar parameter values. In addition, the minimal necessary SNR is lower compared with the case in which the influence of the bars on the signal shape is ignored.