Multistatic Passive Radar Employing Magnetic Loop Antennas

Passive radars have been gaining attention in recent years due to their effective implementation in tasks of detection, tracking and identification of radio-reflecting targets without the need for installation and maintenance of dedicated cooperating radio-transmitters. Further, multistatic passive radars exploit multiple transmitters and/or receivers thus increasing the accuracy and range of detection.Applications include observations of the land, sea and air traffic. Of special interest is the potential capability of detecting stealth aircraft. The multistatic passive radar also allows for implementation in remote sensing of the Earth ionosphere for scientific purposes.This article focuses on a novel multistatic passive radar being under development at the Space Research and Technology Institute - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The radar relies on the commercial FM broadcasting transmitters in Bulgaria and neighbouring countries in the frequency range of 87.5 to 108 MHz. Specific attention is brought to the employed antenna, its characteristics and how it benefits the discussed multistatic passive radar.The herein presented system is protected at the Bulgarian Patent Office by a recently issued Utility Model #3928 from 29th of October, 2020.