Impact of air target altitude and co-channel interference to coverage area of GSM and DVB-T based passive radar

In this paper, the coverage area of a passive bistatic radar system is considered in a case of air target with different altitudes. Illumination of the target is carried out either by GSM-900 base stations or by DVB-T broadcasting stations existing in Finland. Direct path and co-channel interference, propagation attenuation at different antenna heights and target altitudes as well as antenna radiation patterns are taken into account in the estimation of the coverage area. The estimated coverage area is expressed as a function of receiver location with different altitudes of target and with different attenuation values of interference cancellation. The results show that the coverage area depends on the target altitude only if the altitude is very low, and co-channel interference cancellation has a significant role especially in the case the illumination of the target is carried out by GSM-900 base stations.