Research on the Transmissivity of Some Clothing

Materials at Millimeter-wave Band

Zelong Xiao, Jianzhong Xu, Taiyang Hu
MMW Applied Laboratory, Electronic Engineering Department, Nanjing University of Science and Technology
Nanjing 210094, P.R. China
Abstract-The passive millimeter-wave (PMMW) imaging
technology used for the detection of contraband concealed on
personnel has been extensively studied, due to the fact that
millimeter-wave (MMW) can readily penetrate clothing
materials and the passive operation mode doesnt present a
safety hazard to the persons who are under inspection. However,
the research on the transmission property of clothing materials
covered on contraband has received relatively little attention,
although it also plays an important role in design and fabrication
of the whole imaging system. This paper focuses on the problem
of measuring the transmissivity of some clothing materials with
different thickness. These measurements are carried out in a RF
anechoic chamber, based on the analysis to radiation
characteristics of contraband carried on personnel. In addition,
the theoretical model of the radiometric temperature contrast
between human body and contraband at MMW band is also
described in detail. Ultimately, the measurement results of some
clothing materials are presented and analyzed.

I.

According to the Conservation Law of Energy, the relation

between reflectivity , absorptivity and transmissivity t
can be expressed as [5]:
+ + t =1
(1)
When the PMMW imaging is employed in the application
of concealed contraband detection, the schematic diagram can
be depicted in Fig. 1 [6]:

Concealed
Contraband

II. RADIATION CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTRABAND

Radiometer

5
Clothing

INTRODUCTION

The demand to detect contraband concealed underneath a

persons clothing in public areas has urged the passive
millimeter-wave (PMMW) technology to an important level of
development [1], [2]. The PMMW imaging is well suited for
the detection of concealed contraband carried on personnel
because of the fact that millimeter-wave (MMW) can readily
penetrate common clothing materials. And at the same time,
the PMMW imaging system doesnt irradiate the individual
and will pose no known health hazard [3], [4]. The PMMW
imaging makes use of both the penetration capability of
MMW and the radiation characteristics distribution of objects
in the field of view, to achieve the objective of detecting
concealed contraband. The quality of the acquired PMMW
images has a direct relation with the material and thickness of
the clothing covered on contraband. Usually, people cover
themselves with a wide rage of materials [1] and the thickness
of these materials is variable, which makes it difficult to
image contraband accurately. Therefore, it is urgent to take
research on the radiation characteristics of clothing with
different materials and thickness.
This paper details the radiation characteristics of contraband
concealed on personnel and carries out the measurements of
clothing with common materials and different thickness, on
the basis of the implementation of a planner-scanning PMMW
imaging system.

6
1

Human Body
1: Radiometric temperature of the human body;
2: Radiometric temperature of the environment reflected by human body;
3: Radiometric temperature of the clothing;
4: Radiometric temperature of the environment reflected by clothing;
5: Radiometric temperature of the contraband;
6: Radiometric temperature of the environment reflected by contraband.
Figure 1. The schematic diagram of detecting contraband concealed on
personnel by a PMMW imaging system.

It is assumed that the emissivity and reflectivity of human

body are eh and h respectively. The human body is opaque
at MMW band and it can be anticipated that the radiation
energy absorbed by human body doesnt transfer into other
kind of energy but entirely emits out, thus:
eh + h = 1

(2)

Assuming that the emissivity and reflectivity of concealed

contraband are ew and w respectively. As to the metal and
plastic items, they are opaque at MMW band and the
relationship between emissivty and reflectivity can be written
as:
ew + w = 1

(3)

Assuming that the emissivity, reflectivity and transmissivity

of clothing material are e y , y and t y respectively, and
therefore:
ey + y + t y = 1

978-1-4244-1880-0/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE.

(4)

ICMMT2008 Proceedings

Temperatures Th , Tw and T y are the actual physical

temperature of human body, concealed contraband and
clothing respectively. Ts is the radiometric temperature of
environment.
As shown in Fig. 1, when the MMW radiation from the
environment passes through the clothing, a part of them will
be reflected back, another part of them will reach the skin and
be reflected back through the clothing, and then the rest of
them will be reflected by the contraband [6], [7]. In addition,
the human body, the contraband and the clothing will emit
MMW radiation, which relates to both the physical
temperature and the emissivity of them.
When there is no concealed contraband, the received
antenna apparent temperature of the PMMW imaging system
can be expressed as [6]:
T AP1 = eh Th t y + t y Ts h t y + e y T y + y Ts

(5)

When there is no concealed contraband, the received

antenna apparent temperature of the PMMW imaging system
can be expressed as:
T AP 2 = e w Tw t y + t y Ts w t y + e y T y + y Ts (6)

Thus the contrast is the difference between the antenna

apparent temperature when the contraband is present and that
when the contraband is absent, and it can be expressed as: [7]:
T = TAp1 TAp 2

(7)

Then according to (5) and (6), the (7) can be rewritten as:
T = TAp1 TAp 2
= e h Th t y + t y Ts h t y e w Tw t y t y T s w t y
= (e h Th e wT w )t y + ( h w )Ts t 2y

(8)

As to the metal target with a smooth surface and high

conductivity, it is an excellent reflector at MMW frequency
and its reflectivity is equivalent to 1, i.e. w 1 . Then
according to (3), the (8) becomes:
T = (ehTh ewTw )t y + ( h w )Ts t y 2
= e h Th t y + ( h 1)Ts t 2y

the contraband and human body [8]. However, in practical

application, the radiometric temperature contrast relates to
many other factors, such as the barriers of buildings and the
orientation of contraband with the human body. According to
a series of experiments, it is summarized that when the angle
between the contraband and the horizontal exceeds 120D , the
contraband is considered to only reflect the radiometric
temperature of the sky, whereas when the angle is less than
120 D the radiometric temperature of environment should also
be taken into account, and this will result in a lower
radiometric temperature contrast [6]. For the sake of
convenience, it is assumed that the contraband will only
reflect the sky radiation in the following discussion.
The physical temperature of human body is generally about
37, i.e. Th = 310K. The properties of skin depend principally
on wetness, and typically the reflectivity is about 0.5 at Ka
band and 0.14 at W band [9]. Commonly, the reflectivity of
different people and different parts of the body varies
remarkably, so the following discussion is carried out on the
primaries of some specific condition.
The radiometric temperature of the sky has relationship
with season, climate and many other factors. It is usually
considered to be about 30-150K at MMW band [10].
From the above discussion, it is known that the emissivity
of skin and the transmissivity of clothing covered on
contraband are the most concerned parameters. As to the
emissivity of skin, it is assumed to be 0.5 at Ka band and 0.8
at W band, according to the results presented by Roger
Appleby [3], [9]. The reflectivity of metal contraband can be
considered as 1. And the transmissivity of clothing with
different material and different thickness is measured in next
section.
III. MEASUREMENT OF TRANSMISSIVITY OF SOME COMMON
CLOTHING MATERIALS
The measurements are carried out in a RF anechoic
chamber by utilizing an antenna test system AV3635 and
some related equipments. The experiment scene is illustrated
in Fig. 2.

(9)

When incorporated with (4), the (9) reduces to:

T = e h Th t y + ( h 1)Ts t y2
= e h Th t y e h Ts t y2

(10)

From (10), it is known that the radiometric temperature

contrast can be calculated if the emissivity of human body, the
transmissivity of clothing and the radiometric temperature of
environment are given. And then the contraband concealed
underneath clothing can be detected on the basis of the
characteristics of radiometric temperature contrast.
In particular, the concealed contraband will mainly reflect
the radiometric temperature of the sky when the imaging is
carried out outdoors, and it provides a high contrast between

Figure 2. The experiment scene.

The equipments in the measurement, as shown in Fig. 3,

include a T/R model at Ka band, a MMW sweeping signal
generator AV1418C and a vector network analyzer AV3615,

etc. Both the transmitting antenna and the receiving antenna

are standard horn antennas. The measured samples include
cotton fabric, woollen sweater, terylene, pure cotton coat,
poncho cloth and down jacket.

Figure 3. The experiment equipments.

As illustrated in Fig.2, the distance between the transmitting

antenna and the sample under measurement is equal to the
distance between the receiving antenna and the sample, and
both of them are about 0.5m. Moreover, a series of
combinations of different samples and different layers are
adopted in the measurements, with the purpose of imitating
the actual circumstance in which contrabands may be
concealed.
The obtained measurement results are presented in Table I.
And after analyzing the measurement results, it is concluded
that:
(1) The attenuation, which is caused by the clothing
samples, at W band is severer than that at Ka band under the
same condition. And it means that the transmissivity of a
specific clothing sample at Ka band is higher than that at W
band.
(2) MMW can readily penetrate different kinds of clothing
material. In this experiment, the received signal is attenuated
only about 9 dB when more than 50 layers of cotton cloth are
puckered together.
(3) Plastic materials, such as poncho cloth, indicate an
effective capability to attenuate MMW, so it is generally more
difficult to distinguish the contraband covered by plastic.
(4) The measurement results are related to many factors,
such as the angle between the clothing and the antenna
apertures, the smoothness of the clothing and the space
between layers, etc.

IV. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

From the analysis to the theoretical model and a series of
measurements, it can be concluded that the quality of the
PMMW images used for concealed contraband detection is
closely related to the radiometric temperature contrast
between human body and the contraband. Additionally, the
transmission property of the clothing covered on contraband
greatly influences the radiometric temperature contrast. A
number of transmissivity values of clothing with different
materials and different thickness are obtained in a RF
anechoic chamber, including cotton cloth, plastic, terylene and
woollen sweater, etc. And in the process of imaging, it is
found that the quality of the PMMW images is affected not
only by the angle between the antenna beam and the object
being imaged, but also the smoothness of the clothing covered
on contraband and the nonuniform thickness. And these
factors need further investigation.
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[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

[5]
[6]
[7]

[8]

[9]
[10]

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Slamani, and Pramod K. Varshney, Imaging for Concealed Weapon
Detection, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. pp. 52-61, March 2005.
Gordon N. Sinclair, Roger Appleby, Peter R. Coward, and Sean Price,
Passive millimeter wave imaging in security scanning, Proceedings of
SPIE. vol. 4032, pp. 40-45, 2000.
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Li Xingguo, Millimeter-wave Near-sensing Techniques and Its
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TABLE I
MEASUREMENT RESULTS OF D IFFERENT CLOTHING MATERIAL
Material

Layers

Thickness (mm)

Transmitting Power (dBm)

1
2
2
3
3
4
1+2

2
1
2
1
2
2
3

4.70
0.95
1.90
2.30
4.60
0.24
5.65

5
5
5
5
5
5
5

Attenuation at Ka band
(dB)
(dB/mm)
1.81
0.39
0.19
0.20
1.14
0.60
0.49
0.21
5.13
1.11
1.39
5.79
2.05
0.36

Attenuation at W band
(dB)
(dB/mm)
2.81
0.60
0.60
0.68
2.50
1.30
0.93
0.41
7.62
1.65
1.61
6.67
3.45
0.61

1+3
3
7.00
5
1.94
0.28
1+4
4
4.94
5
2.13
0.43
2+3
2
3.25
5
1.34
0.41
2+4
3
1.19
5
0.56
0.48
1+2+3
4
7.95
5
3.60
0.45
5
1
0.30
5
0.14
0.47
5
2
0.60
5
0.18
0.30
5
4
1.20
5
0.55
0.47
5
8
2.40
5
0.83
0.36
6
1
0.30
5
0.10
0.33
6
2
0.60
5
0.21
0.35
6
4
1.20
5
0.48
0.40
6
8
2.40
5
1.14
0.47
6
16
4.80
5
1.65
0.34
1: 1-woollen sweater; 2-terylene; 3-pure cotton coat; 4-poncho cloth; 5-dark blue cloth; 6- cambridge blue cloth.
2: And -- denotes that the corresponding results arent obtained.

4.24
3.73
1.86
3.73
8.68
0.56
---0.35
0.76
1.93
3.20
--

0.61
0.76
0.60
3.13
1.09
1.87
---1.17
1.27
1.60
1.33
--