Experimental results of aircraft positioning based on passive primary surveillance radar

This paper describes an activity of passive surveillance system in Japan. Electric Navigation Research Institute (ENRI) started the feasibility study of the passive surveillance system to be a conventional primary surveillance radar (PSR) alternative. The representative system among its technologies is a multi-static primary surveillance radar (MSPSR) which achieves higher update rates and higher detection rates including low level flights than those of the current PSR. The MSPSR is classified into passive bi-static radar (PBR), and it is operated by combining some transmitters or some receivers. Radio waves of the conventional PSR are suitable resources of operating frequency. Therefore, ENRI has investigated passive PSR. In this paper, we introduce our recent works and show some results of experiments carried out in the Sendai and Nagoya areas in Japan. In the experiments, we investigated the advantages of the passive PSR. First, we introduce experimental environment and experimental setup. Next, we show experimental results. Results show high performance of the passive PSR system where the passive secondary surveillance radar (SSR) was unable to carry out positioning. Finally, we discuss the passive PSR potential.