Passive radar detects and ranges targets by receiving signals which are reflected off targets. Communication transmissions are generally used, however, theoretically any signal with a suitable ambiguity function may be used. The exploitation of an existing transmitter and the removal of emissions allow passive radars to act as a complementary sensor which is useful in environments where conventional active radar is not well suited. Such environments are in covert operations and in situations where a low cost or spectrally efficient solution is required. Most developed passive radars employ intensive signal processing and use application specific equipment to achieve detection. The high-end processors and receiver equipment, however, detract from some of the inherent advantages in the passive radar architecture. These include the lower cost and power requirements achieved by removing transmitter hardware. This study investigates the challenges faced when removing application-specific and high end components from the system and replacing them with low-cost alternatives. Solutions to these challenges are presented and validated by designing and evaluating a radar using these principles. It was found that the major limitation in passive radar is the dynamic range of the receiver. While processing the signals was, and is, a significant challenge, be implemented on a low-cost, low-power embedded processor. This was achieved by asserting a few limitations to the configuration, exploiting the subsequently generated redundancy, and taking advantage of the parallelism by using general purpose graphics processing.. Even on this processor, the system was able to run in real time and able to detect targets up to 91 km (bistatic range of 195 km) from the radar. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted

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Passive radar is a technology for detection of targets using echoes of existing radio transmitter, such as FM-radio. Since only receivers are needed for operation, a passive radar system has the possibility of being implemented using low-cost hardware. Using lower cost implementations to cover blind-spots of other, more sophisticated systems, could be a viable solution for full radar coverage. To achieve this, an understanding of the effects such low-cost systems have on the performance of a radar is needed.  A prominent problem for passive radar is that the interference caused by the direct signal from the transmitter used and reflections from uninteresting terrain, called clutter, can drown out the echoes from targets. This thesis compares the direct signal interference (DSI) suppression algorithms: ECA, ECA-S, ECA-B, NLMS and FBNLMS when run on data from a low-cost receiver called KerberosSDR. It is found that the low ADC resolution of 8 bits is a limiting factor for KerberosSDR. Random noise in the receiver can also limit the performance. None of the tested algorithms are any more or less affected by the ADC resolution or the noise. The first difference appears when comparing the execution times, where FBNLMS is 10–20 times faster than the other algorithms. However, the slower rate of convergence for FBNLMS and NLMS causes them to lose performance in environments where the DSI and clutter are considerably stronger than the target echoes. The algorithms FBNLMS and NLMS also lose performance due to their inability to model frequency shifted echoes as unwanted. The main disadvantages of ECA, ECA-B and ECA-S are their long execution time. It is concluded that FBNLMS would be the best candidate in most cases for low-cost hardware, as it allows execution on slower hardware and the main disadvantages not being too prominent in the use case of covering blind-spots of other systems.

Rather than emitting pulses, passive radar systems rely on illuminators of opportunity, such as TV and FM radio, to illuminate potential targets. These systems are attractive since they allow receivers to operate without emitting energy, rendering them covert. Until recently, most of the research regarding passive radar has focused on detecting and tracking targets. This dissertation focuses on extending the capabilities of passive radar systems to include automatic target recognition. The target recognition algorithm described in this dissertation uses the radar cross section (RCS) of potential targets, collected over a short period of time, as the key information for target recognition. To make the simulated RCS as accurate as possible, the received signal model accounts for aircraft position and orientation, propagation losses, and antenna gain patterns. An extended Kalman filter (EKF) estimates the target's orientation (and uncertainty in the estimate) from velocity measurements obtained from the passive radar tracker. Coupling the aircraft orientation and state with the known antenna locations permits computation of the incident and observed azimuth and elevation angles. The Fast Illinois Solver Code (FISC) simulates the RCS of potential target classes as a function of these angles. Thus, the approximated incident and observed angles allow the appropriate RCS to be extracted from a database of FISC results. Using this process, the RCS of each aircraft in the target class is simulated as though each is executing the same maneuver as the target detected by the system. Two additional scaling processes are required to transform the RCS into a power profile (magnitude only) simulating the signal in the receiver. First, the RCS is scaled by the Advanced Refractive Effects Prediction System (AREPS) code to account for propagation losses that occur as functions of altitude and range. Then, the Numerical Electromagnetic Code (NEC2) computes the antenna gain pattern, further scaling the RCS. A Rician likelihood model compares the scaled RCS of the illuminated aircraft with those of the potential targets. To improve the robustness of the result, the algorithm jointly optimizes over feasible orientation profiles and target types via dynamic programming.

Passive coherent location (PCL) radars employ illuminators of opportunity to detect and track targets. This silent operating mode provides many advantages such as low cost and interception immunity. Many radiation sources have been exploited as illumination sources such as broadcasting and telecommunication transmitters. The classical architecture of the bistatic PCL radars involves two receiving channels: a reference channel and a surveillance channel. The reference channel captures the direct-path signal from the transmitter, and the surveillancesignal collects the possible target echoes. The two major challenges for the PCL radars are the reference signal noise and the surveillance signal static clutter. A noisy reference signal degrades the detection probability by increasing the noise-floor level of the detection filter output. And the static clutter presence in the surveillance signal reduces the detector dynamic range and buries low magnitude echoes.In this thesis, we consider a PCL radar based on the digital video broadcasting-terrestrial (DVB-T) signals, and we propose a set of improved methods to deal with the reference signal noise and the static clutter in the surveillance signal. The DVB-T signals constitute an excellentcandidate as an illumination source for PCL radars; they are characterized by a wide bandwidth and a high radiated power. In addition, they provide the possibility of reconstructing the reference signal to enhance its quality, and they allow a straightforward static clutter suppressionin the frequency domain. This thesis proposes an optimum method for the reference signal reconstruction and an improved method for the static clutter suppression.The optimum reference signal reconstruction minimizes the mean square error between the reconstructed signal and the exact one. And the improved static clutter suppression method exploits the possibility of estimating the propagation channel. These two methods extend thefeasibility of a single receiver PCL radar, where the reference signal is extracted from the direct-path signal present in the surveillance signal. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The topic of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radar recently gained considerable interest because it can transmit partially correlated or fully independent waveforms. The inherited waveform diversity helps MIMO radars identify more targets and adds flexibility to the beampattern design. The realized advantages come at the expense of enhanced processing requirements and increased system complexity. In this regards, a closed-form method is derived to generate practical finite-alphabet waveforms with specific correlation properties to match the desired beampattern. Next, the performance of adaptive estimation techniques is examined. Indeed, target localization or reflection coefficient estimation usually involves optimizing a given cost-function over a grid of points. The estimation performance is directly affected by the grid resolution. In this work, the cost function of Capon and amplitude and phase estimation (APES) adaptive beamformers are reformulated. The new cost functions can be evaluated using the two-dimensional fast-Fourier-transform (2D-FFT) which reduces the estimation runtime. Generalized expressions of the Cram´er-Rao lower bound are computed to assess the performance of our estimators. Afterward, a novel estimation algorithm based on the monopulse technique is proposed. In comparison with adaptive methods, monopulse requires less number of received pulses. Hence, it is widely used for fast target localization and tracking purposes. This work suggests an approach that localizes two point targets present in the hemisphere using one set of four antennas. To separate targets sharing the same elevation or azimuth angles, a second set of antennas is required. Two solutions are suggested to combine the outputs from the antenna sets and improve the overall detection performance. The last part of the dissertation focuses on the application and implementation side of radars rather than the theoretical aspects. It describes the realized hardware and software design of a compact portable 24 GHz frequency-modulated-continuous-wave (FMCW) radar. The prototype can assist the visually impaired during their outdoor journeys and prevents collisions with their surrounding environment. Moreover, the device performs diverse tasks such as range-direction mapping, velocity estimation, presence detection, and vital sign monitoring. The experimental result section demonstrates the device’s capabilities in different use-cases.

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Cette thèse porte sur l'application des techniques de filtrage statistiques au radar passif. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'adapter les méthodes à somme de gaussiennes et les méthodes particulaires pour la détection et/ou la poursuite dans un contexte multi-cible. Nous nous intéressons aux problématiques liées à des cibles fortement manoeuvrantes à rapport signal sur bruit pouvant être très faible. En guise d'application, la radio FM et la télévision numérique DVB-T seront exploitées comme sources d'opportunité par le système de localisation passive. Dans un premier temps, cette thèse récapitule l'état de l'art dans le domaine du radar passif, du filtrage statistique et des approches conventionnelles de pistage radar à base de données seuillées. Dans un deuxième temps, cette thèse explore l'apport du filtrage particulaire en radar passif. Avec une modélisation convenable du problème de poursuite d'une cible sous la forme d'un système dynamique non-linéaire, nous montrons comment le filtrage particulaire, appliqué sur les sorties bruitées (non-seuillées) du corrélateur, améliore les performances en terme de poursuite par rapport aux approches conventionnelles. Une extension au cas multi-cible est également traitée. L'ingrédient essentiel de l'algorithme proposé est l'intégration d'un système de synchronisation de l'instant d'échantillonnage du corrélateur (et le cas échéant de la fréquence de corrélation) qui permet à l'algorithme particulaire de compenser automatiquement la dynamique des cibles. Dans un troisième temps, nous exposons un nouveau système de détection/poursuite multi cible basé sur le filtrage bayésien avec la méthodologie "track-before-detect". Ce système est implémenté par une approximation à base de somme de gaussiennes ou une approximation à base de filtrage particulaire. Nous proposons également une technique d'annulation successive d'interférence qui permet de gérer la présence de lobes secondaires importants. Des simulations utilisant un signal radio FM, ont permis de confirmer le potentiel du système de détection/poursuite proposé. / The subject of this thesis is the application of statistical filtering techniques to passive radar. The objective of this thesis is to adapt Gaussian sum filtering and particle filtering methods to the detection and/or tracking in a multi-target context. Highly manoeuvring targets, at potentially very low signal-to-noise ratios, will be of particular interest. As an application, FM radio and terrestrial digital video broadcasting (DVB-T) will be exploited as illuminators of opportunity by the passive localization system. First, this thesis recapitulates the state-of-the-art in the domain of passive radar, statistical filtering and conventional radar tracking approaches based on the thresholded data. Second, this thesis explores the benefits of particle filtering in passive radar. With an appropriate modeling of the problem of target tracking as a non-linear dynamical system, we show how particle filtering, fed with the noisy unthresholded matched filter outputs, outperforms conventional tracking approaches. An extension to the multi-target case is also treated. The essential ingredient of the proposed algorithm is the inbuilt synchronization system of the correlator sampling instants (and potentially also of the correlation frequency), which allows the particle filter to compensate the dynamics of the targets automatically. Third, we present a new multi-target detection/tracking system, based on Bayesian filtering, using the track-before-detect methodology. This system is implemented with an approximation based on Gaussian sum filtering or an approximation based on particle filtering. We also propose a successive interference cancellation technique, which allows to handle the presence of large sidelobes. Simulations using FM radio confirmed the potential of the proposed detection/tracking system.

abstract: Eigenvalues of the Gram matrix formed from received data frequently appear in sufficient detection statistics for multi-channel detection with Generalized Likelihood Ratio (GLRT) and Bayesian tests. In a frequently presented model for passive radar, in which the null hypothesis is that the channels are independent and contain only complex white Gaussian noise and the alternative hypothesis is that the channels contain a common rank-one signal in the mean, the GLRT statistic is the largest eigenvalue $\lambda_1$ of the Gram matrix formed from data. This Gram matrix has a Wishart distribution. Although exact expressions for the distribution of $\lambda_1$ are known under both hypotheses, numerically calculating values of these distribution functions presents difficulties in cases where the dimension of the data vectors is large. This dissertation presents tractable methods for computing the distribution of $\lambda_1$ under both the null and alternative hypotheses through a technique of expanding known expressions for the distribution of $\lambda_1$ as inner products of orthogonal polynomials. These newly presented expressions for the distribution allow for computation of detection thresholds and receiver operating characteristic curves to arbitrary precision in floating point arithmetic. This represents a significant advancement over the state of the art in a problem that could previously only be addressed by Monte Carlo methods. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2019

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