Towards Seeing Bones at Radio Frequency
This addresses the challenge of non-invasive medical or security imaging with RF, though it appears incremental as it builds on prior penetration-based RF imaging methods.
The paper tackles the problem of achieving high-resolution X-ray-like bone imaging at radio frequencies by introducing MCT, a penetration-based RF-imaging system that improves resolution from sub-decimeter to sub-centimeter in meat models.
Wireless sensing literature has long aspired to achieve X-ray-like vision at radio frequencies. Yet, state-of-the-art wireless sensing literature has yet to generate the archetypal X-ray image: one of the bones beneath flesh. In this paper, we explore MCT, a penetration-based RF-imaging system for imaging bones at mm-resolution, one that significantly exceeds prior penetration-based RF imaging literature. Indeed the long wavelength, significant attenuation and complex diffraction that occur as RF propagates through flesh, have long limited imaging resolution (to several centimeters at best). We address these concerns through a novel penetration-based synthetic aperture algorithm, coupled with a learning-based pipeline to correct for diffraction-induced artifacts. A detailed evaluation of meat models demonstrates a resolution improvement from sub-decimeter to sub-centimeter over prior art in RF penetrative imaging.