Utilization of terrestrial navigation signals for passive radar

Passive radars use transmissions from signals of opportunity in order to locate targets. The absence of a dedicated transmitter reduce the cost, complexity and detectability of the radar as compared to active radar systems. This paper investigates — for the first time — the use of signals of a metropolitan-wide terrestrial positioning system for passive radar. We present simple theoretical analysis predicts the efficacy of these terrestrial navigation signals for this application. Additionally, we demonstrate that aircraft can be observed in a passive radar system exploiting a terrestrial positioning transmission at 10 km bistatic range.