Passive radar on moving platforms exploiting DVB-T transmitters of opportunity

The work, effort, and research put into passive radar for stationary receivers have shown significant developments and progress in recent years. The next challenge is mounting a passive radar on moving platforms for the purpose of target detection and ground imaging, e.g. for covert border control. A passive radar on a moving platform has many advantages and offers many benefits, however there is also a considerable drawback that has limited its application so far. Due to the movement the clutter returns are spread in Doppler and may overlap moving targets, which are then difficult to detect. While this problem is common for an active radar as well, with a passive radar a further problem arises: It is impossible to control the exploited time-varying waveform emitted from a telecommunication transmitter. A conventional processing approach is ineffective as the time-varying waveform leads to residuals all over the processed data. Therefore a dedicated clutter cancellation method, e.g. the displaced phase centre antenna (DPCA) approach, does not have the ability to completely remove the clutter, so that target detection is considerably limited. The aim must be therefore to overcome this limitation by exploiting a processing technique, which is able to remove these residuals in order to cope with the clutter returns thus making target detection feasible. The findings of this research and thesis show that a reciprocal filtering based stage is able to provide a time-invariant impulse response similar to the transmissions of an active radar. Due to this benefit it is possible to achieve an overall complete clutter removal together with a dedicated DPCA stage, so that moving target detection is considerably improved, making it possible in the first place. Based on mathematical analysis and on simulations it is proven, that by exploiting this processing in principle an infinite clutter cancellation can be achieved. This result shows that the reciprocal filter is an essential processing stage. Applications on real data acquired from two different measurement campaigns prove these results. By the proposed approach, the limiting factor (i.e. the time-varying waveform) for target detection is negotiated, and in principle any clutter cancellation technique known from active radar can be applied. Therefore this analysis and the results provide a substantial contribution to the passive radar research community and enables it to address the next questions

A two-stage approach for direct signal and clutter cancellation in passive radar on moving platforms

This paper addresses the problem of direct signal interference (DSI) and clutter cancellation for passive radar systems on moving platforms using displaced phase centre antenna (DPCA) approach in the presence of receive channels imbalance. First, we show that using the signal emitted by the illuminator of opportunity as a source for channels calibration might be ineffective when DSI and clutter echoes have different directions of arrival. Then, a calibration approach is presented, based on supervised selection of clutter areas in the range-Doppler map. Finally, a two-stage strategy is presented, composed of an ECA-based DSI removal prior to DPCA clutter cancellation, which doesn’t require supervised selection of the calibration area. The effectiveness of this scheme in the joint suppression of DSI and clutter is shown against real data

Passive radar DPCA schemes with adaptive channel calibration

This paper addresses the problem of direct signal interference (DSI) and clutter cancellation for passive radar systems on moving platforms employing displaced phase centre antenna (DPCA) approach. Attention is focused on the development of signal processing strategies able to compensate for the limitations deriving from amplitude and phase imbalances that affect the two channels employed on receive. First, we show that using the signal received from the illuminator of opportunity as a source for channels calibration might be ineffective when DSI and clutter echoes have different directions of arrival, due to the effect of angle-dependent channel imbalance. Then, a two-stage strategy is proposed, consisting of a preliminary DSI removal stage at each receive channel, followed by a clutter-based calibration approach that basically enables an effective DPCA clutter suppression. Different strategies for channel calibration are proposed, aimed at compensating for potential angle and range dependent channel errors, based on the maximization of the cancellation performance. Effectiveness of this scheme is shown against experimental data from a DVB-T based moving passive radar, in the presence of both real and synthetic moving targets

A Three-Stage Inter-Channel Calibration Approach for Passive Radar on Moving Platforms Exploiting the Minimum Variance Power Spectrum

Research in passive radar has moved its focus towards passive radar on moving platforms in recent years with the purpose of moving target indication and ground imaging via synthetic aperture radar. This is also fostered by the progress in hardware miniaturization, which alleviates the installation of the required hardware on moving platforms. Terrestrial transmitters, commonly known as illuminators of opportunity in the passive radar community, usually emit the signals in the Very High Frequency (VHF) or Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band. Due to the long wavelengths of the VHF/UHF band, there are constraints on the size of the used antenna elements, and therefore, the number of antenna elements to be employed is limited, especially as the platform carrying the passive radar system is intended to be small, potentially even an unmanned aerial vehicle. In order to detect moving targets hidden by Doppler shifted clutter returns, one common approach is to suppress the clutter returns by applying clutter suppression techniques that rely on spatial and temporal degrees of freedom, such as Displaced Phase Center Antenna (DPCA) or Space-Time Adaptive Processing. It has been shown that the DPCA approach is a meaningful technique to suppress the clutter if two antenna elements are employed. However, if the employed receiving channels are not carefully calibrated, the clutter suppression is shown to be not effective. Here, we suggest a three-stage calibration technique in order to perform the calibration of two receiving channels, which involves the exploitation of the direct signal, a data-adaptive amplitude calibration, and finally, a data-adaptive calibration of phase mismatches between both receiving channels by the estimation of the Minimum Variance Power Spectrum of the clutter. The validity of the proposed approach is shown with simulated data and demonstrated on real data from a fast ground moving platform, showing improved clutter cancellation capabilities

Hybrid person detection and tracking in H.264/AVC video streams

In this paper we present a new hybrid framework for detecting and tracking persons in surveillance video streams compressed according to the H.264/AVC video coding standard. The framework consists of three stages and operates in both the compressed and the pixel domain of the video. The combination of compressed and pixel domain represents the hybrid character. Its main objective is to significantly reduce the amount of computation required, in particular for frames and image regions with few people present. In its first stage the proposed framework evaluates the header information for each compressed frame in the video sequence, namely the macroblock type information. This results in a coarse binary mask segmenting the frame into foreground and background. Only the foreground regions are processed further in the second stage that searches for persons in the image pixel domain by applying a person detector based on the Implicit Shape Model. The third stage segments each detected person further with a newly developed method that fuses information from the first two stages. This helps obtaining a finer segmentation for calculating a color histogram suitable for tracking the person using the mean shift algorithm. The proposed framework was experimentally evaluated on a publicly available test set. The results demonstrate that the proposed framework reliably separates frames with and without persons such that the computational load is significantly reduced while the detection performance is kept

Dual cancelled channel STAP for target detection and DOA estimation in passive radar

This paper deals with the problem of detection and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation of slowly moving targets against clutter in multichannel mobile passive radar. A dual cancelled channel space-time adaptive processing (STAP) scheme is proposed, aiming at reducing the system computational complexity, as well as the amount of required training data, compared to a conventional full array solution. The proposed scheme is shown to yield comparable target detection capability and DOA estimation accuracy with respect to the corresponding full array solution, despite the lower computational cost required. Moreover, it offers increased robustness against adaptivity losses, operating effectively even in the presence of a limited set of training data, as often available in the highly non-homogeneous clutter scenarios experienced in bistatic passive radar. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme and its suitability for passive GMTI are demonstrated against both simulated and experimental data collected by a DVB-T-based multichannel mobile passive radar

PASSAT: Passive Imaging Radar Constellation for Near-Persistent Earth Observation

Persistent monitoring of large areas using spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a challenging problem for various defence and civil applications. Despite the fact that spaceborne SAR from low Earth orbit (LEO) is a well-developed technology, in practice it cannot provide persistent monitoring of any particular geographical region, as any single satellite has a rather long revisit time. Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) SAR missions have been proposed, but here there are major engineering issues due the severe path loss across the distances involved. Indeed, path loss is even more severe in radar systems than it is in radio communications. To provide persistent (or near persistent) monitoring from LEO, a very large number of satellites (~100) would be required to detect short-lived events. However, even though such a solution may be technically possible, a satellite constellation development of this scale may not be economically viable. The PASSAT project was proposed and undertaken by the University of Birmingham, under the sponsorship of the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, to analyse the concept of a fully passive (receive only) spaceborne SAR system based on a constellation of microsatellites. By making use of terrestrial transmitters (we propose to use ground-based broadcasting systems, i.e. DVB-T, DAB, FM radio and similar as transmitters of opportunity), the problem of having to carry a high power pulsed radar transmitter on a microsatellite is eliminated. Instead, the satellite only need carry a suitable receiver, antenna and signal storage facility. It is expected that such a system will: (i) provide imaging of a monitored area with a potentially achievable resolution of 2-3 m in either direction; (ii) cover mainly populated parts of the Earth and, partly, littoral waters; (iii) its costs will be orders of magnitude less in comparison to an equivalent active spaceborne SAR constellation. In addition we may expect more information-rich images, as we are dealing with a multi-static, multi-frequency (VHF/UHF) system which effectively has no equivalent at present. In this paper, the emphasis is on the PASSAT concept, the space segment investigation and the experimental results of passive SAR imaging with DVB-T transmissions undertaken at the University of Birmingham using a local DVB-T transmitter

PASSAT: Passive Imaging Radar Constellation for Near-Persistent Earth Observation

Persistent monitoring of large areas using spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a challenging problem for various defence and civil applications. Despite the fact that spaceborne SAR from low Earth orbit (LEO) is a well-developed technology, in practice it cannot provide persistent monitoring of any particular geographical region, as any single satellite has a rather long revisit time. Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) SAR missions have been proposed, but here there are major engineering issues due the severe path loss across the distances involved. Indeed, path loss is even more severe in radar systems than it is in radio communications. To provide persistent (or near persistent) monitoring from LEO, a very large number of satellites (~100) would be required to detect short-lived events. However, even though such a solution may be technically possible, a satellite constellation development of this scale may not be economically viable. The PASSAT project was proposed and undertaken by the University of Birmingham, under the sponsorship of the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, to analyse the concept of a fully passive (receive only) spaceborne SAR system based on a constellation of microsatellites. By making use of terrestrial transmitters (we propose to use ground-based broadcasting systems, i.e. DVB-T, DAB, FM radio and similar as transmitters of opportunity), the problem of having to carry a high power pulsed radar transmitter on a microsatellite is eliminated. Instead, the satellite only need carry a suitable receiver, antenna and signal storage facility. It is expected that such a system will: (i) provide imaging of a monitored area with a potentially achievable resolution of 2-3 m in either direction; (ii) cover mainly populated parts of the Earth and, partly, littoral waters; (iii) its costs will be orders of magnitude less in comparison to an equivalent active spaceborne SAR constellation. In addition we may expect more information-rich images, as we are dealing with a multi-static, multi-frequency (VHF/UHF) system which effectively has no equivalent at present. In this paper, the emphasis is on the PASSAT concept, the space segment investigation and the experimental results of passive SAR imaging with DVB-T transmissions undertaken at the University of Birmingham using a local DVB-T transmitter