Projects:2018s1-115 Passive Radar in the High Frequency Band using Civil Transmissions

Project Team

Students

Nathan M

Supervisors

Dr. Brian Ng

Abstract

A conventional active radar system has the ability to detect and track objects of interest, however in a combat situation, the location of the transmitter may be traced by the enemy. A passive radar system exploits a variety of non-cooperative illuminators to act as the transmitter, allowing the receiver to remain hidden. This project works with industry partners Lockheed Martin Australia (LMA) to develop a passive radar system exploiting Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) signals. The proposed targets of this system are aircraft, and potentially the International Space Station (ISS). This will be achieved by constructing a 5 channel receiver, combined with a custom RSP. The tracks obtained from these targets will be compared with an appropriate ground truth to verify the accuracy of the system. The system will be designed to deal with issues common to passive radar systems such as signal clutter and DSI. The results will be used to further demonstrate the practicality of passive radar systems using DVB transmissions, and to provide a logical approach for the detection of aircraft and the ISS using these signals.

Results

To be updated.