A practical millimeter-wave (MMW) holographic imaging system with good robustness is developed for the detection of concealed weapons at security checkpoints, especially at the airport. The system is used to scan the passenger and detect any weapons hidden in their clothes. To reconstruct the three dimensional image, a holographic MMW imaging algorithm based on aperture synthesis and backscattering is presented. The system is active and works at 28–33 GHz. As a practical imaging system, the robustness is analyzed in detail in terms of the peak signal-to-noise ratio.