Passive forward scatter radar based on satellite TV broadcast for air target detection: Preliminary experimental results

The focus of this paper is on the detection of airborne targets and on the estimation of their velocity by means of passive forward scatter radar systems based on the DVB-S as transmitter of opportunity. Results related to an experimental campaign carried out near “Leonardo Da Vinci” airport (Rome, Italy) are shown. Particularly the Doppler signature spectrogram is analyzed for a single node FSR configuration and time delay techniques are analyzed for a multi-static configuration suitable for velocity estimation. Obtained results clearly show the feasibility of the DVB-S based FSR configuration to reliably detect aircrafts and the effectiveness of the proposed velocity estimation techniques even in the near field area.