This paper introduces PanoRadar, a novel RF imaging system that brings RF resolution close to that of LiDAR, while providing resilience against conditions challenging for optical signals. Our LiDAR-comparable 3D imaging results enable, for the first time, a variety of visual recognition tasks at radio frequency, including surface normal estimation, semantic segmentation, and object detection. PanoRadar utilizes a rotating single-chip mmWave radar, along with a combination of novel signal processing and machine learning algorithms, to create high-resolution 3D images of the surroundings. Our system accurately estimates robot motion, allowing for coherent imaging through a dense grid of synthetic antennas. It also exploits the high azimuth resolution to enhance elevation resolution using learning-based methods. Furthermore, PanoRadar tackles 3D learning via 2D convolutions and addresses challenges due to the unique characteristics of RF signals. Our results demonstrate PanoRadar's robust performance across 12 buildings.
@article{arxiv.2405.19516,
title = {Enabling Visual Recognition at Radio Frequency},
author = {Haowen Lai and Gaoxiang Luo and Yifei Liu and Mingmin Zhao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.19516},
year = {2024}
}