Long-distance multistatic aircraft tracking with VHF frequency doppler effect

A multistatic Doppler radar concept based on long-distance VHF frequency recordings is presented and tested in a two-receiver, one-transmitter configuration. The core of the method is a mathematical model of Doppler shift generation in a passive configuration of many simultaneous transmitting radio stations and receivers that share the Doppler shift information they have recorded. The tracking capabilities of such a multistatic configuration are tested in an off-line experiment over a distance of 400 km. Aircraft position was recovered to an apparent precision of 1500 m. The method also corrects for errors in time synchronization between receivers.