Ricerc@Sapienza

Passive radar has reached a stage of maturity such that it can be mounted on mobile platforms for the purpose of moving-target-detection. However some constraints limit the capability of target detection within the Doppler spread clutter region which arises due to the receiver's movement. Typically employed terrestrial illuminators of opportunity transmit in the Very High Frequency/Ultra High Frequency band, which puts some constraints on the size and number of employed antenna elements.

The effectiveness of DVB-T based passive radar (PR) in counter drones operations is investigated in this study aiming at monitoring airport terminal areas. In particular, the authors demonstrate that such sensors could be effectively employed to provide simultaneous short-range surveillance against drones and long-range monitoring of aircraft from civil air traffic. To this purpose, several experimental tests have been performed with the DVB-T based AULOS® passive sensor developed by Leonardo S.p.A.