Passive bistatic coherent radar system operates with distinct non-cooperative transmitter and receiver located at different sites. In such spatial separation, the receiving system needs to independently solve the problem of time and phase synchronization via direct-path signal. The impact of time synchronization error was explored and solved in passive bistatic coherent radar. The common model of digital sampling process is introduced to illustrate the effect of time synchronization error (TSE). The periodicity of relative sample instant variation of each pulse is deduced. Then, normalized interference power (NIP) is defined to evaluate the potential impact of TSE. The NIP expressions are derived when the difference between the adjacent relative sample instant is uniform distribution or Gaussian distribution. It is found that there are new spurious frequency components and the detection performance is decreased in the case of asynchronous sampling. At the same time, the analytical Doppler frequency bias expression caused by TSE is presented. Theoretical results are confirmed by simulation in the cases of different periods of relative sampling instant.Keywords passive coherent radar (PCR), time synchronization error (TSE), normalized interference power (NIP)
CitationHe Y, Zhang C S, Ding J H, et al. The impact of time synchronization error on passive coherent pulsed radar system.