Prof. Thia Kirubarajan (Kiruba),
Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.,
McMaster University

Thursday, November 20, 2008, 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Please register by sending an email to:

IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Chapter and IEEE Communications Chapter

Passive coherent location (PCL) is an emerging (or a re-emerging) technology in air defense systems. PCL system uses existing commercial signals (e.g., FM broadcast and TV transmission signals) as illuminators of opportunity. PCL systems have a number of advantages over conventional monostatic or bistatic radar systems. The monostatic or bistatic active radars reveal their locations by emitting signals due to their energy emission, and quickly become targets themselves. Since there is no active radar transmission signals in PCL systems, there is almost no risk of being detected as the transmitters (i.e., radio and TV stations) are already out there at known locations. Therefore, PCL facilitates covert operation and increase resilience to electronic countermeasures.

Since FM radio and TV signals are freely available across the land, PCL systems have number of advantages such as wide coverage, low cost of operation and maintenance, and operation without a frequency clearance. The PCL system can also be used to fill dead-spots in existing radar coverage and extend the awareness of surveillance territories. Multi-illumination provides signals in mountainous regions. Therefore, it becomes possible to decrease the blind zones in an economic and effective manner. Also, the capability to detect low-flying stealthy targets is enhanced in PCL systems. In this presentation we describe an experimental PCL system to track multiple targets using commercial signals from FM or TV stations. Results are presented on a set of real data obtained with real aircraft and radio/TV signals.

Dr. Thia Kirubarajan is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, where he also holds the Canada Research Chair in Information Fusion. Dr. Kirubarajan's research interests are in estimation, target tracking, multisource information fusion, sensor resource management, signal detection and fault diagnosis. He has published about 250 articles in these research areas, in addition to one book on estimation, tracking and navigation and four edited volumes. He is also a recipient of Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award (2002) and the Barry Carlton Award for the Best Paper Published in the IEEE Transactions of Aerospace and Electronic Systems (2000).