Multiband experimental PCL system: Concept and measurement results

Over recent years, interest in passive radar systems using non-cooperative analogue and digital broadcast transmitters as illuminators has been growing significantly. They are being considered as possible future stand-alone systems or as gap fillers for existing air surveillance systems. Recently passive radar is also discussed for the deployment in border surveillance as well as for detection of land and sea targets. The technical maturity and detection performance of experimental and prototype system implementations has been steadily improving. Starting from early FM-broadcast-based systems, the evolution to DAB-based and DVB-T-based digital systems is currently ongoing. In this paper, a multiband experimental passive radar system exploiting FM, DAB and DVB-T transmitters is presented. The hybrid system concept is described and the results of various measurements with different types of aerial and sea targets are shown.