Design, Development and First Experimental Results of A Multi-antenna, Multi-beam, Multi-frequency Passive Radar System

This paper presents the design of a multi-antenna, multi-beam, multi-frequency air surveillance system developed at Prince Sultan Defense Studies and Research Center (PSDSARC), Saudi Arabia. The system is configurable to operate as a bi-static or a multi-static passive radar (PR) using fixed (e.g., roof-top) as well as movable (mobile van) installations. The processing chain of PR system is implemented over CPU-GPU server for real-time 360° surveillance of airspace. Results of field experiments exploiting multiple FM channels from a single non-cooperative transmitter in bi-static configuration, show that the radar is able to reliably detect aerial targets up to 300 Km away from its receiver maintaining high track maintenance probability for targets up to bi-static ranges of 150 Km, with 2D track accuracy better than 1 Km.