The concept of airborne passive radar

VHF airborne passive bistatic radar ground clutter investigation

“…The median clutter power, σ C , and median normalised clutter RCS, σ 0 , are plotted with respect to bistatic angle in Figure 5 where σ C = σ 0 A C , with A C defined in Equation (6). Calculating the specific reflectivity in this way implicitly includes any propagation factors within the value of σ 0 .…”

“…The airborne application of Passive Bistatic Radar (PBR) is the latest evolution of the now established international interest in passive radar techniques [6]. Implicit in PBR operation is the ability to operate a surveillance system by exploiting ambient spectrum, such as communication signals, terrestrial broadcasts or satelliteborne GPS signals.…”

Initial results of passive SAR imaging using a DVB-T based airborne radar receiver

“…Over the last few decades the idea of an airborne passive radar technology using an existing network of commercial, ground based illuminators of opportunity (e.g., FM radio, DAB, DVB-T, GSM, etc.) has surfaced [1,2]. In such a concept, a passive receiver mounted on an airborne platform does not transmit its own power, which allows the air platform to be invisible to electronic reconnaissance systems, such as ELINT (electronic intelligence) systems for example.…”

“…However most ground based radars use rotating antennas, which do not allow for the continuous illumination of the imaging area. This fact has led the authors of this paper to conduct a study on passive bistatic SAR radars mounted on moving platforms [1,2,7].Preliminary analysis has shown that it is possible to make a passive image using the SAR technique with ground based illuminators. The question was then down to which type of transmitter should be used.…”

Analysis of range migration and Doppler history for an airborne passive bistatic SAR radar

“…Over the last few years strong interest in passive bistatic radar (PBR) technology dedicated for airborne platforms has been observed [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The main advantages of this technology are the lack of emissions and low cost of such a system, as it uses transmitters of opportunity for illuminating targets.…”