Bistatic radar using a spaceborne illuminator

A bistatic radar has a physically separated transmitter and receiver. This paper investigates a bistatic radar system which uses a spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) transmitter on board the European Space Agency´s Envisat satellite and a stationary, ground based receiver. The advantages of this variant of the bistatic configuration includes the passive and therefore covert nature of the receiver, its relatively low cost, in addition to the possibility of using a non-cooperative transmitter.