Passive bistatic ISAR based on geostationary satellites for coastal surveillance

The paper proposes a new passive bistatic ISAR mode for coastal surveillance based on the exploitation of the signals transmitted by telecommunication geostationary satellites. Specifically it is demonstrated that ISAR images with acceptable quality of ship targets could be obtained by using telecommunication geostationary satellites as opportunity transmitters and stationary passive devices, located near the coast, as receivers. The geostationary satellites assure a continuous and complete coverage of wide areas: moreover satellites available in the near future should also provide a bandwidth suitable for the achievement of medium slant range resolutions. Since in ISAR the target motion is exploited to obtain cross-range resolution, a network of stationary low cost receiving only devices could be therefore properly located on the coast to obtain ISAR images of ship targets of interest for the surveillance and monitoring of the maritime traffic. © 2010 IEEE.