Simultaneous short and long range surveillance of drones and aircrafts with DVB-T based Passive Radar

In this paper, we consider the exploitation of a DVB-T based Passive Radar for simultaneous short and long range surveillance of drones and aircrafts, respectively. In detail, an airport terminal area surveillance application is considered and the effectiveness of the employed sensor is investigated with reference to the two search tasks to be accomplished simultaneously. For the purpose of our analysis, experimental data have been collected by means of the DVB-T based AULOS® passive sensor developed by Leonardo S.p.A against both a very small RCS drone and conventional air traffic. Then, an appropriate processing scheme is extensively applied against the collected datasets, based on the algorithmic solutions proposed by the research group at Sapienza University. The reported results preliminary demonstrate the capability of a DVB-T based Passive Radar of simultaneously detecting and localizing drones flying around the airport area as well as the typical civil aircrafts at longer distances.