Antenna Array for Passive Radar: Configuration Design and Adaptive Approaches to Disturbance Cancellation

Abstract

In this paper we consider the selection of an antenna array configuration, composed of a small number of omni-directional elements, to be exploited for passive radar sensors. Based on properly identified pattern characteristics and design criteria for practical applications, a suitable planar configuration is selected that allows both angular selectivity and direct signal attenuation. The selected configuration is further optimized in terms of sidelobe level by resorting to appropriate amplitude tapering. Moreover, three different approaches are investigated for antenna-based adaptive disturbance cancellation and a comparative performance analysis is carried out. Simulation results show that an effective clutter suppression is obtained if the direct signal from the transmitter is attenuated by means of spatial adaptive cancellation and the multipath echoes from stationary obstacles are removed by means of temporal adaptive cancellation. In particular, the approach based on the Side Lobe Canceller is shown to yield good performance while requiring a limited system complexity.