A multi-band multi-beam software-defined passive radar part II: Signal processing

Passive radar has gained considerable popularity in recent times for different types of target detection. This radar uses the so-called “signals of the opportunities” from broadcast, communications or other radar sources that are different in frequency, bandwidth, modulation and spatial location. Instead of following the traditional approach of designing fixed-hardware systems to capture any single opportunistic signal, a better approach is to design a single software-defined radar system having the capability to reconfigure itself on-the-fly. This paper presents the software, hardware and signal processing aspects for a software-defined multi-band, multi-beam passive radar. Digital beamforming with switchable antenna arrays is used to form adaptive beams towards targets and transmitters. Multi-band target detection capability is demonstrated through experiments and target tracking results are given at the end.