Impact of quantization on passive radar target detection

In this paper we investigate the dynamic range requirements of a passive radar system and show the impact of analog-to-digital converter (ADC) quantization on system performance. This analysis is carried out with a view towards understanding how many ADC bits are required in each channel of the passive radar system. To give practical insight, we consider the parameters of a passive radar system which uses terrestrial digital video broadcast (DVB-T) signals, and the detection of a hypothetical 10 m² target at 150 km using well documented passive radar signal processing techniques.