Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine January 2018 - 32

Malanowski et al.
the maximum acceleration is 250 m/s2 (ca. 25 g)-these results are
very similar to the ones indicated by the radar.

CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In this article, it was shown that passive radar can be successfully
used for rocket detection. It can be used as a cheap and effective
alternative to other sources of information on rocket trajectory.
Compared to active radar, the proposed technique has several
advantages. It is relatively cheap, as a passive radar can be built
with ordinary antennas, general purpose receiver and a computer.
Because the radar is passive, no license for emission is required,
which can be really difficult to obtain by amateur rocket engineers.
Another advantage in comparison with an active radar is the lack
of problems with unambiguous determination of range and velocity simultaneously. In classical active pulsed radar either range
or velocity (or both) are measured ambiguously. In passive radar
on the other hand, both range and velocity are measured unambiguously thanks to the continuous and nonrepetitive illuminating
waveform.
From the point of view of passive bistatic radar, results presented in the article are a new application of the technology, which
is primarily used for detection of aircraft. The detection of rockets is not a main stream application of passive radar, but it shows
that this kind of radar is applicable to a wide range of surveillance
problems.
The practical realization of the DVB-T based radar was limited
in the past by the computational complexity of signal processing,
mainly the clutter removal procedure and crossambiguity function
calculation. Nowadays, with ever increasing processing power of
computers, especially equipped with powerful Graphics Processing Units, the realization of real-time processing is no longer a
major problem [21], [22], [23].
One of the issues that has to be considered when passive radar is used for the detection of such agile target is the integration time limitations. If a classical processing detection scheme
is used, the integration time has to be limited based on the expected maximum velocity and acceleration of the target. Otherwise, detection losses will occur. There are, however, methods
which can alleviate limitations of the integration time considered
in the article. One of the methods is to extend the crossambiguity
function calculation by taking into consideration the stretch of
the signal envelope. In other words, the time shift of the signal
envelope is no longer considered constant during the integration
time. Another way of extending the crossambiguity function is
the addition of a quadratic term to the exponent function, which
compensates for the bistatic acceleration. In this way, the nonconstant velocity during the integration time can be dealt with.
More precisely, the quadratic term compensates linear velocity
change. In order to compensate higher order velocity changes,
higher than quadratic terms have to be added. After the application of the aforementioned extensions, the integration time can
be extended, thus providing higher signal-to-noise ratio which
increases detection range.
Another aspect of rocket detection using passive radar is target
illumination by transmitters of opportunity. When the target's alti32

tude is high and/or the transmitter is close to the target, elevation
pattern losses can influence detection capabilities.

The authors would like to thank Damian Mayer for providing information on his rocket, and Andrzej Chwastek from the Polish
Rocket Society for providing photographs.

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JANUARY 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine January 2018