Measurement association in SFN passive radar systems

Passive radar systems utilize the signals of other broadcast or communication systems to illuminate the target. This kind of arrangement can offer an increased probability of detection of stealth targets and a lower probability of intercept necessary in many military applications. When a passive radar operates in a single-frequency network, such as DVB-T2, all transmitted signals share the same frequency and waveform. The receiver needs to be able to assign the echoes to the correct transmitters in order to detect a target and estimate its parameters. In this paper, a novel measurement association method that can be used even if only a single measurement is available from each of the transmitters is proposed. It is shown with simulations that the method is able to perfectly associate all the active transmitters in more than 90 % of the cases with a single measurement only, while allowing a reasonable tolerance for the delay estimation errors. It is also shown that the larger number of measurement points makes it possible to significantly increase the probability of correct association.