2.1 Bistatic Radars and Their Third Resurgence: Passive Coherent Location

Instructor: Nicholas J. Willis

Wednesday April 24, 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

How to Get Bistatic Radar, 2nd Edition by Nicholas J. Willis (PDF 24 kB)

Abstract

Bistatic radars operate with transmitter and receiver separated by a considerable distance. They were the first radars to be developed in the early 1930's, but with the invention of pulsed transmitters and duplexers, were totally replaced by monostatic radars starting in WW II. Since then bistatic radars have been "rediscovered" three times. The first resurgence occurred in the 1950's, with the development and deployment of semiactive homing missiles and satellite/missile tracking radars. The second resurgence occurred in the 1970's, primarily as a counter to the anti-radiation missile threat, but nothing became operational.

The third resurgence occurred in the 1990's when it was confirmed that bistatic receivers could exploit existing TV and FM broadcast transmitters. This phenomenon is sometimes called Passive Coherent Location (PCL); it is undergoing test and evaluation.

The tutorial summarizes this bistatic radar history, the fundamentals of bistatic radars, differences between bistatic and monostatic radars, and then evaluates PCL state-of-the-art.

Bio

Mr. Willis received a BS degree in mathematics from Stanford University in 1956 under an NROTC-Holloway scholarship. He spent five years in the U.S. Navy, sixteen years in industry with Philco-Ford, SRI International and Systems Control, Inc., five years at DARPA, and a final 17 years at Technology Service Corp. Mr. Willis is now retired, but consults for government and industry.

At DARPA Mr. Willis was responsible for programs in airborne, LPI and bistatic radar (including Pave Mover, the forerunner of JSTARS). On a TSC subcontract to Westinghouse Electric Corp. he designed one of the F-22 radar modes. He also conducted radar and electronic warfare short courses.

Mr. Willis has published more than 50 technical reports, and is author of the book Bistatic Radar, the chapter "Bistatic Radar" in the Radar Handbook, and the chapter "RF Deception" in Countermeasures for Aircraft Survivability. He won DoD's JDR Best Paper Award in 1981 for "Bistatic Radar" and again in 1985 for "Low Probability of Intercept Radars."

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