Passive radar processing with quantised signals

A recent study suggested that passive radar processing could be performed adequately using data which had been digitised using fewer bits per sample than are typical of an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC). It is known that passive radar output is improved by preprocessing both surveillance and reference channels. This study examines how quantisation of a real data set affects the ability of preprocessing to improve passive radar output, using metrics based on radar ambiguity surfaces to quantify performance. It is found that the benefits of preprocessing are achieved at quantisation levels well below the original level of the ADC.