Transmitter network model and diversity experiments for a multiband Passive Radar System

Based on the advances in recent years, Passive Radar Systems can be considered as a supplement or even a possible alternative to active radar systems for airspace surveillance. In large parts of the world broadcast networks and third-party communication services are available which reliably provide a multistatic and multiband illumination of the airspace. To facilitate the operational use of Passive Radar for air surveillance or air traffic management systems, the coverage areas, operational reliability and detection performance of the Passive Radar sensors have to be optimized. Besides the particular hardware implementation and algorithm design of a Passive Radar sensor, the key to maximize the coverage area and detection performance is a diversity-based system approach, i.e. the efficient exploitation of multi-band, multi-transmitter and multi-site diversity effects. For the design of diversity-based PR systems it is necessary to rely on valid models for the existing transmitter network infrastructure. This paper presents an analysis of the broadcast network structure in Germany and derives a Tx network reference model for this area. Based on this model, design considerations and measurement results for a diversity-based long range PR system are presented.