Workshop on Present and Future Perspectives of Passive Radar

Passive Radar (also known as Passive Coherent Location, PCL) uses ambient radio signals (transmitter of opportunity) to illuminate the target environment. This makes it resilient against detection and ubiquitous in application. As PCL is per se bi-/multi-static, its performance heavily depends on the availability of multiple illuminators and/or observers and requires multiple sensor data fusion. While conventional radio transmitters (FM, TV and DAB/DVB) have been used so far, the availability of new radio services offers unprecedented opportunities for PCL. These include new satellite services and wireless systems. Whereas usage of GSM for PCL was already proposed, the new 4G mobile radio system concepts like LTE, and even more the envisaged 5G standard (still in preparation) will offer entirely new features that have not yet been fully explored. Interesting new features will be attributed, e.g. to new waveforms, scalable radio interfaces, flexible radio resource allocation, multiple antenna technologies, new frequencies, etc. On the other hand, cheap yet powerful software defined radio platforms are available. Moreover, ultra-light personal air platforms are becoming popular, as well as inexpensive unmanned flying platforms. These targets are not easily detected by conventional radar. Similarly the planned introduction of autonomous driving would require a large amount of radar sensing for road traffic control and safety.

Passive radar seems to be an approach to establish ubiquitous radar services based on pervasive illumination. Thus, PCL can be considered a green technology that does not need (resp. waste) scarce frequency resources. Radio services from satellite via cellular down to WiFi can be exploited for a variety of applications on different scales from remote sensing down to road traffic management and private security.

The aim of the workshop is to start from the state-of-the-art and move towards the future perspectives of PCL in the light of new and upcoming radio services, ubiquitous mobile platforms, and emerging application needs.