Patent ID: 8427360

Claim:
An imaging system for profiling an area of interest, said system comprising: a plurality of transmitter elements, wherein each transmitter element transmits a plurality of coded signals toward the area of interest; a plurality of receiver elements, each receiver element receiving a plurality of return signals corresponding to the transmitted coded signals from the area of interest; and at least one processor, said processor being adapted to: separate the return signals for each transmitter to receiver path received by each of the receiver elements to form a plurality of data channels; form a plurality of beams from the plurality of data channels by co-phasing the data channels to remove phase shifts associated with each of the received signals angle of arrival and sum each set of return signals received by each receiver and wherein each beam includes a first received signal; produce a set of range profiles from data contained in each of the plurality of beams; measure the distance to the nearest point in each beam based on delay time for receipt of the first return signal from each beam; produce a terrain profile of the area of interest from the distance measures; and display an image of the terrain profile of the area of interest.