Bistatic Radar Positioning of a Moving Target, Using Only Range and Range-Rate Measurements

Of the many applications of bistatic (BS) radars, this article addresses the possibility to replace a monostatic radar with its highly directive antenna, with a coherent BS radar using a single short baseline between the transmitter and the receiver and no direction measurements. The method applies to a moving target and requires both
range
and
range-rate
BS measurements. Theory and field-test results demonstrate, on a two-dimensional scene, how several consecutive pairs of BS
range

$( r )$
and
range-rate

$( {\dot{r}} )$
measurements of a moving target can provide the target's position, velocity, and heading (
x, y, v_x, v_y
). In a three-dimensional scene, with five estimated target parameters (
x, y, h, v_x, v_y
), a second receiver is needed, not in-line with the original baseline. The
$( {r,\dot{r}} )$
measurements distinguish the suggested concept from most other multistatic radars as well as the well-known multilateration positioning or interferometric angle-of-arrival estimation.