Synchronization of a Multistatic High Resolution Imaging Radar using Low-Cost Satellite TV Receiver Hardware

Kurzfassung

With growing interest in multistatic radar systems, the need for accurate and precise synchronization schemes becomes increasingly important. Large baseline systems face substantial challenges to achieve the required synchronization accuracy. In this work, we present a synchronization technique applicable for high resolution imaging radar systems based on the reception of a wide bandwidth broadcast TV signal at remote receive-only nodes and at the transmitting and receiving base node. Coherence is then established using signal processing in the post-processing stages to regain the timing and phase differences present between the participating nodes in the system. This allows to greatly increase the synchronization accuracy in terms of timing and oscillator phase tracking compared to conventional GNSS based synchronization schemes. It is independent of the number of participating nodes, and we demonstrate a standard deviation phase noise in X band as low as 1.69° and timing jitters as low as 2.42 ps allowing high resolution SAR / ISAR techniques to be employed. It is verified using real-world measurement with modified consumer COTS LNBs to receive the satellite TV signal.