Passive bistatic radar (PBR), exploiting broadcast, communications or radionavigation signals, has received a great deal of attention in recent years, and has a number of attractions compared with conventional radar systems. However, the waveforms are not fundamentally designed for radar operation, so their performance will in general be suboptimal. It is therefore important to understand the effect of the waveform on the performance of the PBR, so as to be able to choose the most appropriate illuminator and to use the waveform in the optimal way, and it is in this sense that PBR forms a subject of waveform diversity. This chapter reviews the properties of a range of different PBR waveforms and the processing methods used with them.

Inspec keywords: radar signal processing; passive radar

Other keywords: radar systems; illuminator; passive bistatic radar waveforms; waveform diversity; PBR performance; PBR waveforms; communication signal; broadcast signal; radionavigation signal; radar operation

Subjects: Signal processing and detection; Radar equipment, systems and applications