Quad channel software defined receiver for passive radar application

Abstract

Abstract In recent times the growing utilization of the electromagnetic environment brings the passive radar researches more and more to the fore. For the utilization of the wide range of illuminators of opportunity the application of wideband radio receivers is required. At the same time the multichannel receiver structure has also critical importance in target direction finding and interference suppression. This paper presents the development of a multichannel software defined receiver specifically for passive radar applications. One of the relevant feature of the developed receiver platform is its up-to-date SoC (System on hip) based structure, which greatly enhance the integration and signal processing capacity of the system, all while keeping the costs low. The software defined operation of the discussed receiver system is demonstrated with using DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcast – Terrestrial) signal as illuminator of opportunity. During this demonstration the multichannel capabilities of the realized system are also tested with real data using direction finding and beamforming algorithms.