SYSTEM, DEVICE AND METHOD FOR IMAGING OF OBJECTS USING SIGNAL CLUSTERING

• US 20170153324A1
• Filed: 11/29/2016
• Published: 06/01/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vayyar Imaging Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Vayyar Imaging Ltd.
• Inventors: LOMNITZ, Yuval Shamuel
• Granted Patent: US 10,436,896 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/888 through wall detection
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/89 for mapping or imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/2135 based on approximation criteria, e.g. principal component analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/12 of transmit antennas, e.g. of the amplitude or phase

Abstract

There is provided methods and device for imaging objects comprising unsupervised classifying and data analyzing of the object to detect and identify the structure of the object and further display the object'"'"'s structure/underlying structure, for example the arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of the object by using a location module configured to record the physical location of an antenna array.

Claims

1. A device for imaging an object, the object comprises a plurality of parts, the device comprising:

an antenna array comprising a plurality of antennas;

a measurement unit configured to transmit signals to the antenna array and to receive signals from the antenna array; and

a processor in communication with said measurement unit, said processor is configured to discriminate the received signals into types or categories, and generate an image of said object.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein said types are displayed by a displayer according to the location where the received signals were measured on said object.

3. The device of claim 1 wherein said measurement unit is configured to perform a reflective measurement by either a frequency sweep or a time pulse.

4. The device of claim 1 wherein said measurement unit is configured to extract phase and amplitude of the received signals.

5. The device of claim 1 wherein the processor is configured to cluster said signals into at least two groups.

6. The device of claim 1 wherein the processor is configured to discriminate said received signals according to a Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

7. The device of claim 1 wherein the processor is configured to discriminate said received signals by comparing each signal of said received signals to other signals of said received signals by means of a distance metric, and allocate a high rank to signals which are significantly different than other signals as indicated by a high value of the said distance metric.

8. The device of claim 1 further comprising a location module said location module is configured to record the physical location of the antenna array and wherein the signals are measured by sliding the antenna array along a the surface of the object, and wherein each signal is tagged with the physical location at which it was measured.

9. The device of claim 8 wherein the processor is configured to cluster said tagged signals into at least two groups.

10. The device of claim 8 wherein the processor is configured to discriminate said signals by using Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

11. The device of claim 8 wherein the processor is configured to discriminate said signals by comparing each signal to other signals, and allocating a high rank to signals which are significantly different than other signals.

12. The device of claim 8 wherein the processor is configured to display average properties of said signals.

13. The device of claim 12 wherein said average is an average power in a specific time range or mean delay.

14. The device of claim 1 wherein said measurement unit comprises at least one transceiver, a signal generation and reception unit and an extraction unit.

15. A method of imaging the inner structure of an object, the method comprising:

scanning the object by a device, said device comprises;

an antenna array, a measurement unit configured to transmit signals to the antenna array and to receive signals from the antenna array, and a processor for analyzing said received signals;

collecting the received signals into a form of time signals tagged with physical location for limiting the time signals to a region of interest;

centering the received signals;

arranging the received signal as a vector of data points;

discriminating the data vectors into types; and

displaying the types by a displayer

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the centering of the received signals comprises removing the mean over all locations from the time signals.

17. The method of claim 15 comprising normalizing the received signals by estimating an empirical standard deviation per time point and signal, and dividing by said standard deviation.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said standard deviation is estimated by averaging the signal strength over a window of adjacent points in time.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein said discrimination step is performed according to methods selected from the group consisting of:

clustering, distance from cluster center, PCA (Principal Component Analysis), anomaly error, RMS (compute an average delay) and intensity per time range.

20. The method of claim 15 comprising calibrating the received signals by dividing the received signals by a known reference signal.