Improved 2D Ground Target Tracking in GPS-Based Passive Radar Scenarios

Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites offer promising opportunity for Passive Radar systems due to their global coverage and the availability of multiple satellites throughout the world. However, their low power at ground level limits system coverage. In this paper, a GPS based Passive Radar which exploits a single illumination source, and uses digital array processing for ground targets localization is presented. To face signal power problems, a processing scheme combining reconstructed reference signals, adaptive filtering techniques and spatial filtering is implemented. Conventional beamforming techniques are used to increase the level of the target echo before the detection stage, and high resolution DoA estimation techniques are applied to estimate targets azimuth. Ground target localization in local Cartesian space is performed taking into account the system geometry, range and azimuth information. Both synthetic and real radar data are used to analyse system operation. During the measurement campaign, a cooperative vehicle was used for validation purposes. Results confirm that ground targets detection and localization are feasible using a single GPS transmitter.