Exploitation of deterministic signals for passive single-channel detection

Passive Bistatic Radar (PBR) systems use noncooperative illuminators of opportunity to detect, localise and track targets. The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential of PBR target detection in the presence of non-random signals emitted by non-cooperative transmitters of opportunity, such as radar systems, and without the use of a reference channel. An experiment to detect a moving target was carried out at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom to demonstrate target detection capabilities using a low cost off-the-shelf receiver. Results show that moving targets can be successfully detected although care must be taken in correcting for frequency offset effects deriving from the non-coherency and non-stability of the receiver local oscillator.