New challenges for PCL system : 3D requirements and “Optimal” resources management for PCL air traffic survey

For more than 15 years, the interest for PCL (Passive Coherent Location) system has been growing. It began with the analog waveforms like TV [1] and FM [2, 3], nevertheless it quickly appears that the recent digital waveforms (using COFDM modulation) could offer new interesting capabilities especially for range resolution. Despite the interesting recent progress related to these digital waveforms like the compulsory development of a specific zero-Doppler path cancellation filter [2, 4] especially for SFN mode, some new additional requirements mentioned by several potential users [5, 6] of such PCL system have appeared : • Such PCL systems are generally considered as complementary sensors for low altitude coverage. As a consequence, these systems should provide an altitude estimation and especially for these low altitude targets. • On other hand, it is also important to manage and chose the most suitable donors in a given area in order to “optimise” the system definition according to our objectives. This paper will illustrate some experimental results for site estimation using DVB-T transmitters in SFN mode. The signals are received on a 2D array. Then a brief comparison of the mutual and specific benefits expected for the main civilian broadcasters (FM, DAB, DVB-T) will be provided.