Measurement and analysis of clutter signal from GSM/DCS-based passive radar

Passive radars are not at all new to the radar community though they lately raised interest among researchers for some specific features that make them more appealing than classic active radar systems. In fact, having the TX and RX located at two different positions, and the adoption of signals carrying other kinds of information such as GSM (either classical or the 1800/1900 MHz version) or FM modulated carriers, makes passive radar virtually undetectable and economically advantageous. In the paper a measurement system used to characterize the clutter from a GSM/DCS-based passive radar is presented. The main objective is to study the statistical properties of the clutter signal and to find a theoretical model fitting the measured clutter data.