Maritime moving target detection and localisation technique for Global Navigation Satellite Signals‐based passive multistatic radar

Abstract

This article puts forward a ship target detection and localisation technique for GNSS‐based passive multistatic radar. The approach capitalises on the large spatial diversity offered by navigation satellite constellations to provide maritime awareness using short integration time windows, thus bypassing the shortcomings suffered by approaches relying on long dwells typically considered in satellite‐based passive radar systems. The proposed approach entirely operates on the Cartesian plane and it is able to provide in a single stage the detection and localisation of the target in the surveyed area. Theoretical and simulated performance analysis are provided to illustrate as the proposed approach can outperform conventional two‐stages (i.e. bistatic detection then localisation) procedures, with particular regard to the case of significant radar cross section scintillation, likely experienced in the system under consideration. The effectiveness of the approach has been verified via experimental data acquired in a few scenarios of interest comprising opportunistic targets belonging to different types.

Guest Editorial: Selected papers from RADAR 2022—International Conference on Radar Systems (Edinburgh, UK)

“…GNSS-based passive multistatic radar for ship target detection and localisation is investigated in Ref. [7]. The proposed approach exploits the large spatial diversity offered by the GNSS constellation to provide maritime surveillance using short integration time windows.…”