Detection of DVB-T2 control symbols in passive radar systems

Passive radars offer several advantages over the conventional radar systems by using a source of illumination that is independent from the receivers and primarily used in other purposes. The second generation digital television standard DVB-T2 is a good alternative to be utilized as an illuminating system. Passive radar receivers should be able to detect the target echo at very low signal-to-noise ratios. In this paper, a novel detection method for the DVB-T2 signal is proposed that fulfills these conditions. Distributions of test statistic are established and the performance of the method is verified with simulations. It is shown that the proposed method is suitable for passive radar systems and can be used without the exact knowledge of the transmitted signal waveform.