Design, development and test on real data of an FM based prototypical passive radar

This paper describes the design, development and test of a passive covert radar (PCR) exploiting a single non cooperative frequency modulated (FM) commercial radio station as its transmitter of opportunity. The system has been conceived in order to detect low flying and low radar cross section (RCS) targets even in disturbed and hostile electromagnetic environments. Preliminary measurements of the electromagnetic field intensity at the installation and test site of the prototypical PCR, suggested developing: (i) log-periodic antennas with adequate front-to-back ratio; (ii) brand new receivers characterized by state-of-art technology; (iii) adaptive signal processing; (iv) data processing based on particle filtering. The performance of the real-time system, whose refresh rate is less than five seconds, has been assessed comparing its output to truth data provided by air traffic control systems.