Experimental Results Investigating the Feasibility of GPS Bistatic Radar for Target Detection and Estimation

Chow Yii Pui, Matthew Trinkle

Abstract:	A study has been undertaken to investigate the feasibility of using GPS signals to detect targets in a passive bistatic radar scenario. This application requires a high sensitivity receiver system as it is mainly challenged by the extremely weak power of the reflected GPS signals that make them difficult to detect. A preliminary experiment has been performed with a ground-based receiver that captured both the direct and reflected signals using separate collocated antennas. This experiment showed that a GPS-based bistatic radar system could detect a nearby moving target by using sufficiently long integration times. This experiment used a single antenna element and forms a baseline for predicting the performance of the more advanced systems using multiple antennas in an array. The position of the target could also be estimated using the time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) measurements between the direct and reflected signals.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2011) September 20 - 23, 2011 Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon Portland, OR
Pages:	3165 - 3171
Cite this article:	Pui, Chow Yii, Trinkle, Matthew, "Experimental Results Investigating the Feasibility of GPS Bistatic Radar for Target Detection and Estimation," Proceedings of the 24th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2011), Portland, OR, September 2011, pp. 3165-3171.
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