IDEPAR: a multichannel digital video broadcasting‐terrestrial passive radar technological demonstrator in terrestrial radar scenarios

Passive bistatic radars (PBRs) sensors are emerging technologies that have sparked interest due to the advantages derived from the use of opportunity illuminators instead of dedicated transmitters. An important research effort is being carried out, mainly focused on the analysis of the illuminators waveforms and the development of system demonstrators, being the detection and tracking of low flying aircrafts the most extended validation scenario. IDEPAR is a digital video broadcasting‐terrestrial (DVB‐T)‐based multichannel PBR technological demonstrator, developed in the University of Alcalá. The main contributions of this study are the radar scenario, detection of terrestrial vehicles in semi‐urban environments, and the development of a general and complete design methodology, that will allow the definition of system design requirements for any system and application. To validate system performance, real data were processed and detection and tracking results were evaluated using global positioning system data from cooperative targets. Reference signal processing algorithms were used. Results showed the feasibility of DVB‐T‐based PBRs for detecting and tracking low speed terrestrial vehicles in semi‐urban scenarios.