Improved Detection Performance for Passive Radars Exploiting Known Communication Signal Form

In this letter, we address the problem of target detection in passive multiple-input multiple-output radar networks. A generalized likelihood ratio test is derived, assuming prior knowledge of the signal format used in the noncooperative transmit stations. The performance of the generalized likelihood ratio test in the known signal format case is often significantly more favorable when compared to the case that does not exploit this information. Further, the performance improves with increasing number of samples per symbol and for a sufficiently large number of samples per symbol, the performance closely approximates that of an active radar with a known transmitted signal.