Detection-based localization of passive radar receivers

Passive coherent radar (PCR) is a growing threat to air power. PCRs use ambient signals (e.g., television, FM radio, other radars, etc.) to allow covert operation and thereby make receiver sites virtually undetectable, which complicates the use of conventional countermeasures. We seek to infer information about the receiver location based on the system's behavior, in particular hypothesized knowledge of detection performance as a function of specific aircraft trajectories. Given this detection-only record, the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) of the receiver position and the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) on this estimate are derived. A Monte-Carlo simulation is performed for different detection records validating the MLE and CRB derivations.