Road Traffic Passive Radar Imaging using DVB-S

This work tackles passive ISAR (Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar) imaging to validate a simulation strategy capable of generating a database of different targets in different configurations for classification purposes. As reference scenario, ground targets in real road traffic urban scenarios employing Digital Video Broadcasting-Satellite (DVB-S) signals have been considered. DVB-S transmitters present great advantages (high frequency, high availability, global coverage and a bandwidth composed of multi-channels) to generate high resolution ISAR images. Although ISAR images of ground targets have been generated with controlled experiments in turn-platforms, this contribution considers the constraints of real target dynamics in a passive radar (PR) geometry.Taking into consideration a measurement campaign of IDEPAR (PR demonstrator developed by the University of Alcala) focused on the surveillance of a campus street, a DVB-S passive ISAR image of a concrete mixer has been generated. The resulted image has been compared with a simulated one using ANSYS HFSS and similar main scatters are obtained. The same simulation strategy has been used to generate ISAR images of a sport utility vehicle and a motorcycle. These results have also similar shapes but different dimensions that could be used to face a classification stage in ground traffic monitoring.