Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper addresses the detection of surface slow moving targets by means of an array passive radar based on low-EIRP satellite illuminators of opportunity. Particularly, the use of the receiving array of K elements is considered to provide increased detection capability for targets with limited radar cross section, together with the capability to estimate the target direction-of-arrival. A full processing scheme is proposed to exploit together both the long integration times and the multiple receiving elements.

In this work, an optimal single-snapshot, time domain, group-sparse optimal Bayesian DOA estimation method is proposed and tested on a vector sensors antenna system. Exploiting the group-sparse property of the DOA and the Bayesian formulation of the estimation problem, we provide a fast and accurate DOA estimation algorithm. The proposed estimation method can be used for different steering matrix formulations since the optimal standardization matrix is computed directly from the knowledge of the steering matrix and noise covariance matrix.