Experimental Verification of the Concept of Using LOFAR Radio-Telescopes as Receivers in Passive Radiolocation Systems.

Julia Kłos,Mariusz Pożoga,Krzysztof Kulpa,Jacek Misiurewicz,Konrad Jędrzejewski,Aleksander Droszcz

doi:10.3390/s21062043

Julia Kłos, Mariusz Pożoga + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/s21062043

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Abstract

The paper presents a new idea of using a low-frequency radio-telescope belonging to the LOFAR network as a receiver in a passive radar system. The structure of a LOFAR radio-telescope station is described in the context of applying this radio-telescope for detection of aerial (airplanes) and space (satellite) targets. The theoretical considerations and description of the proposed signal processing schema for the passive radar based on a LOFAR radio-telescope are outlined in the paper. The results of initial experiments verifying the concept of a LOFAR station use as a receiver and a commercial digital radio broadcasting (DAB) transmitters as illuminators of opportunity for aerial object detection are presented.

Highlights

The simplified experiments were conducted to verify the ability of the detection of targets by the passive radiolocation system using the LOFAR PL610 station, located in Borowiec near Poznan, as the receiver
The closest digital radio broadcasting (DAB)+ transmitters were selected in order to use the LOFAR station in Borowiec for receiving both the reference and surveillance signals reflected from airplanes
During both experiments that were held in April and December 2019, two tiles out of all 96 High-frequency Band Antennas (HBA) were steered at the digital radio transmitters in Srem and Piatkowo, and the rest of them was directed towards the surveillance space—the air corridor above Swarzedz, where planes often occur

Summary

Introduction

Instead of possessing a cooperative transmitter they exploit different existing transmitters as illuminators of opportunity. The most popular illuminators of opportunity employed in passive radiolocation systems are analog and digital radio transmitters, digital television transmitters or even cellular base stations. The lack of own dedicated illuminator makes a passive radar undetectable and relatively inexpensive. The development of different telecommunication and broadcast networks with increasing number of transmitters has a strong effect on the popularity of passive radiolocation. A passive radar directly measures bistatic parameters of the target, i.e., a bistatic range and a bistatic velocity. Other target parameters such as position, velocity and effective radar cross section might be estimated, using multiple illuminators of opportunity and/or multiple receivers

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