ARCHIVES OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING VOL. 66(1), pp.

5-16 (2017)

DOI 10.1515/aee-2017-0001

Quad channel software defined receiver

for passive radar application

TAMÁS PETŐ, RUDOLF SELLER

Department of Broadband Infocommunication and Electromagnetic Theory

Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Egry József street 18, 1111 Budapest, Hungary
e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]
(Received: 08.12.2015, revised: 19.07.2016)

Abstract: In recent times the growing utilization of the electromagnetic environment

brings the passive radar researches more and more to the fore. For the utilization of the
wide range of illuminators of opportunity the application of wideband radio receivers is
required. At the same time the multichannel receiver structure has also critical impor-
tance in target direction finding and interference suppression. This paper presents the
development of a multichannel software defined receiver specifically for passive radar
applications. One of the relevant feature of the developed receiver platform is its up-to-
date SoC (System on hip) based structure, which greatly enhance the integration and
signal processing capacity of the system, all while keeping the costs low. The software
defined operation of the discussed receiver system is demonstrated with using DVB-T
(Digital Video Broadcast – Terrestrial) signal as illuminator of opportunity. During this
demonstration the multichannel capabilities of the realized system are also tested with
real data using direction finding and beamforming algorithms.
Key words: DPIS, multichannel receiver, passive radar, PCL, SDR

1. Introduction

Passive radars take advantage of already existing radio sources to detect targets. Resear-
ches have investigated the potential illuminators of opportunity such as the FM radio, GSM,
UMTS, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, DAB, DVB-T, DVB-S signals. The basic proof of concept has been
verified extensively so far for the different illuminator signals [4-6]. Software defined radio
platforms are commonly used in a passive radar demonstrator system due to the flexibility of
such receiver structures [1-3, 10]. The application of multiple IOPs (Illuminator of Opportu-
nity) located in different bands at the same time is also a field of interest in high range reso-
lution and imaging application [10]. However these modular systems are very high-priced and
inhibit the dissemination of passive radar technology. Low cost software defined receivers that
are currently available in wide range are also investigated for passive radar application, how-

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
6 T. Pető, R. Seller Arch. Elect. Eng.

ever the high dynamic range and precise multichannel operation is not achievable with these
units.
One of the most significant limitation factor of passive radars is the direct path inter-
ference [6].The suppression of the strong direct path reference signal in the surveillance chan-
nel is essential in order to achieve a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio in large bistatic target dis-
tances. One of the most straightforward solution for this issue is the use of spatial filtering
with beamforming algorithms [7-9]. FM radio based beamforming passive radars have been
developed successfully in recent times [8].
In this paper we describe our developed multichannel passive radar receiver structure
which is based on SoC (System on Chip) architecture. Our approach not only reduces the cost
of the system, but increases the system integration and provides an up-to-date high perfor-
mance platform for passive radar signal processing. The demonstration of basic spatial filter-
ing implementation on the designed system is also presented. The design considerations (Sec-
tion 2), the structure (Section 3) and the results (Section 4) of the developed hardware plat-
form are described in detail. The effective operation of the platform is tested via field measu-
rements.

2. Design considerations

The required parameters of the receiver system are fundamentally dependent on the
properties of the used illuminator signals. The receiver must be able to cover sufficiently high
dynamic range to the simultaneous reception of the high power direct path signal and the weak
target echoes. At the same time the bandwidth of the used reference signal is also significant
to achieve fine range resolution. For a given illuminator signal the achievable bistatic range
resolution can be calculated using Eq. (1). In Eq. (1) c stands for the speed of light, B denotes
the bandwidth of the signal and β denotes the bistatic angle.
c
Δr = . (1)
⎛β⎞
2B cos⎜ ⎟
⎝2⎠

Table 1 summarizes the main parameters of the most common illuminators of opportunity.
To determine a real requirement for the dynamic range of the receiver system, the power level
of the direct path signal has been calculated for the different applicable illuminators using
Eq. (2) with the baseline distance of L = 10 km. (Antennas with 0 dBi gain are assumed both
on the transmitter and the receiver side.)

Pdirect =
(P λ )
t
2
, (2)
(4π)2 L2
where Pt is the power of the transmitter, λ denotes the wavelength of the IOP and L denotes
the distance from the reference transmitter. In order not to lose sensitivity because of digita-

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
Vol. 66 (2017) Quad channel software defined receiver for passive radar application 7

lization, the quantization noise of the ADC (Analog Digital Converter) must be lower than the
thermal noise floor for the given illuminator bandwidth plus the external noise. The thermal
noise floors have been calculated with Eq. (3).
Pn = kTs B, (3)

where k is the Boltzmann constant, Ts=300 K is the system temperature and B denotes the
bandwidth of the signal. The power of the external noise that is originating from man-made or
natural sources can be estimated using the ITU-R [P.372-8] recommendation. This recom-
mendation is intended to use for system performance determinations and design. The external
noise figure denoted with Fa expresses the power of the external noise above thermal noise
with reference temperature of 300 K (our assumed system temperature). For frequencies bel-
low 1 GHz the values indicated in Table 1 belong to the curve of the man-made noise in
business environment. In frequencies above ~1 GHz noise from individual sources such as
galactic noise, atmospheric gasses, etc. have usually less noise temperature than 300 K (Ex-
pect the noise of the Sun).

Table 1. Relevant parameters of the most common illuminators

Thermal
Received power External
Illuminator EIRP Frequency Bandwidth noise
(L = 10 km) noise factor
floor
FM 100 kW ~100 MHz ~75 kHz !12 dBm !125 dBm 22 dB
GSM 100 W 900, 1800 MHz 200 kHz !61, !67 dBm !120 dBm 8 dB, < 0
UMTS 100 W-1 kW 2100 MHz 3.84 MHz !59 dBm !108 dBm <0
DAB 10 kW ~220 MHz 1.536 MHz !29 dBm !112 dBm 13 dB
DVB-T 1-100 kW ~600 MHz 7.61 MHz !28 dBm !105 dBm 9 dB
DVB-S 100-1000 kW 10.7-12.7 GHz 27-30 MHz – !99 dBm <0

Having examined the parameters of different illuminators the analog digital converter of
the receiver system must have at least ~70 dB dynamic range in order to reduce SNR (Sig-
nal-to-Noise Ratio) degradation originating from the quantization noise. Thus for the digital
conversation we are using 12 bit wide ADC with 100 MHz sampling frequency providing
slightly more than 70 dB SNR. The effective number of bits and thus the SNR for illuminator
signals with small bandwidth can be further increased with performing integration in the deci-
mation stage.
Nowadays several research groups deal with using the DVB-T signal in passive radars.
From among the potentially applicable illuminators of opportunity, the DVB-T signal not only
has beneficial correlation properties but also has relatively wide 7.61 MHz bandwidth and
high power transmitters. Thus it was expedient to test the capabilities of the receiver with this
type of illuminator. The demonstration results are presented in Section 4.

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
8 T. Pető, R. Seller Arch. Elect. Eng.

3. Receiver structure

The block diagram of the designed receiver platform is illustrated in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2.

3.1. RF front-end
RF signals coming from the antenna system are first received by the front-end unit. This
unit is responsible for down-mixing the RF signal to the intermediate frequency which can be
processed further by the digital data acquisition card. Fig. 1 shows the detailed architecture of
the RF signal path.

Fig. 1. Block diagram of the multichannel coherent RF receiver

The first stage of the RF front-end unit is a low noise amplifier which is responsible for
achieving a low noise figure for the overall system. After the first stage the signal is filtered by
an optional band pass filter. Application of the RF filter can improve the out-of-band inter-
ference tolerance capability of the system, but also limits the available illuminators for the
receiver. For the demonstration presented in Section 4 a filter designed to operate in the
DVB-T band has been utilized (460 MHz – 800 MHz). In order to maintain the proper signal
level in the entire RF chain a second RF amplifier has been placed before the signal is mixed
down to the IF (Intermediate Frequency) band. It is also important that in passive radar sce-
narios the reference signal often has very high power at the receiver side, thus the system must
also handle the these signals. Beside this the amplifier stage must have high linearity to avoid
the appearance of the undesired harmonic components in the spectrum. Thus an amplifier with
high power handling capability (Psat) and IP3 (third order intercept point) has been used. After
the second RF amplifier the RF signal is downmixed to the IF band (38 MHz). In order to
implement coherent RF signal reception all the mixers in the system have to use the sample
local oscillator signal, thus the RF power divider is used to distribute the local oscillator signal
for the mixers of the four individual receiver channels. In the last stage the IF signal is filtered
to suppress the RF and local signal leakage. The IF filter is also used as the anti-aliasing filter

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
Vol. 66 (2017) Quad channel software defined receiver for passive radar application 9

for the later digitalization step. It must be emphasized that all the components of the receiver
system are wideband RF integrated circuits to ensure wideband software defined operation.
The critical amplifier stages are MMICs (Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit) and the
RF power divider is implemented as a resistive splitter.

3.2. Digital Data Acquisition

Fig. 2 highlights the structure of the digital data acquisition unit of the system.

Fig. 2. Block diagram of the multichannel passive radar receiver platform

After the RF stage the IF signals are digitalized by the ADC which has serial data output.
At this point of the system the data rate reach 100 MHz 12 bit 4 = 4.8 Gbit/s. This high speed
data stream is split into 8 different lines which greatly facilitates the transfer of the raw data.
The transferred signals then arrive to the SoC (System on Chip). A picture from the receiver
platform can be seen in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Picture of the high speed digital data acquisition board

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
10 T. Pető, R. Seller Arch. Elect. Eng.

We are using the Xilinx Zynq 7020 SoC in the receiver platform. Application of SoC
provides state of the art solution for mixed signal processing demands. The FPGA integrated
into the chip is able to perform the critical signal processing tasks while the dual core ARM
processor can handle effectively the algorithmic problems. Therefore, it is advisable to imple-
ment real time signal processing tasks with high data throughput in the FPGA logic. Ac-
cordingly, we have implemented the ADC receiver logic inside the PL (Programmable Logic).
This logic is mainly responsible for the reception of the high speed raw data transferred by the
ADC. The received digital samples are then forwarded to the DDC (Digital Down-Converter)
circuit. The DDC circuit performs down-mixing to baseband, filtering, and decimation of the
processed signal. Decimation ratio is determined according to the bandwidth of the currently
used reference signal. During the presented experimental measurement, we used 12 as a deci-
mation factor for the processing of the DVB-T signal which has 7.61 MHz bandwidth. From
the output of the DDC module the baseband IQ complex samples are forwarded to the DMA
(Direct Memory Access) controller module. The main task of this logic is to move the data
from the FPGA to the DDR3 memory used by the ARM processors with CPU offload. The
Linux system running on the ARM processors transfers the received data through Gigabit
Ethernet to a computer which performs the passive radar signal processing and detection algo-
rithms. The flexibility and signal processing capability of the system relies on the effective
information exchange between the two part of the system (PL-programmable logic and PS-
processing system). The operating system running on the PS manages the protocols needed to
communicate with the outside world, while it is also able to reach the internal systems and
registers of the PL directly. Because of this construction the passive radar receiver system can
effectively change between the used reference sources by reconfiguring the internal para-
meters of the software defined radio blocks inside the system even during remote operation.

4. Receiver demonstration results

The wideband multichannel operation of the receiver has been tested with DVB-T trans-
mission in the UHF band. To perform an adequate test for the beamforming capabilities, the
effectiveness of the interference suppression has been analyzed as it is real demand in passive
radar applications. The results of these measurement along with results of the DOA (Direction
of Arrival) algorithms are presented.

4.1. Calibration procedure

Amplitude and phase response calibration of a multichannel receiver is essential for the
proper and correct application of the beamforming techniques. In order to carry out relevant
measurements, the receiver unit has been calibrated. This calibration procedure must be per-
formed over the full frequency range of interest. For the presented demonstration the relative
amplitude and phase responses of the individual channels have been recorded from 630 MHz
to 638 MHz in the band of the used DVB-T transmission.

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
Vol. 66 (2017) Quad channel software defined receiver for passive radar application 11

Fig. 4. Calibration measurement setup

The calibration has been performed in an anechoic chamber. The setup of this measu-
rement is illustrated on Fig. 4. Both the RF generator and the receiver unit were, controlled
from a PC. The RF CW (Continuous Wave) excitation signal had been set first, then the re-
ceiver downloaded sufficient IQ samples for the latter offline processing. For the reception of
the RF signals we used an equidistant linear antenna array consisting of 4 fractal patch antenna
elements with 0.52 wavelength (634 MHz) distance between elements. As a reference antenna
for the transmission of the RF calibration signal a wideband log-periodic antenna was used.
The relative amplitude and phase difference between the channels was finally determined in
frequency domain at the currently measured frequency. It has to be noted that in this calibra-
tion setup both the RF multichannel receiver chain and the antenna array were calibrated.
While measuring the calibration matrix, the main direction of the antenna system was rotated
precisely in the direction of the reference antenna. The arrangement of the measurement can
be seen in Fig. 5.
Since the effective interference cancelation is crucial in passive radars applications, the
performance of the calibration was determined with analyzing the suppression capabilities of
the system. This has been carried out with the calculation of the averaged power before and
after performing a beam space processing algorithm.
The success of the calibration has been tested first. During the test measurement the an-
tenna system was rotated from its original calibration direction to a random direction to ensure
more realistic scenario. The RF generator was programed to transmit a priori known wideband
excitation signal in the same setup as in the calibration procedure. The IQ samples were re-
corded and then after correcting the samples the DOA of the test signal has been determined.
For the DOA estimation Capon’s method has been applied as it has high resolution. Eq. (4)
describes the used Capon method.

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
12 T. Pető, R. Seller Arch. Elect. Eng.

Fig. 5. Calibration measurement taken in the anechoic chamber

1
P(Θ ) = , (4)
s(Θ ) Rxx −1 s(Θ )
H

where s(Θ) is the steering vector and Rxx is the spatial correlation matrix. Fig. 6 shows the
calculated results.

Fig. 6. Result of the DOA measurement taken in the anechoic chamber

From the result, the DOA of the test signal has been determined to 125 deg. On the basis of
the knowledge on the incident angle of the transmitted test signal, the beampattern illustrated
in Fig. 7 has been synthesized. The coefficient vector of the beamformer was calculated using
the fixed MSIR (Maximum Signal to Interference Ratio) algorithm according to Eq. (5) which
was configured to place wideband null in the direction of the interference signal.

w H = u H A−1 . (5)

In Eq. (5) w denotes the calculated coefficient vector of the beamformer, u means the
constraint vector and A is the array response matrix.

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
Vol. 66 (2017) Quad channel software defined receiver for passive radar application 13

Fig. 7. Array factor of the synthesized radiation pattern for testing

interference suppression in anechoic chamber

Finally, the cross correlation functions have been calculated to determine the power level
of the known excitation signal. Fig. 8 shows the obtained results. The blue curve represents
the autocorrelation function of the first receiver channel, while the red curve represents the
cross-correlation function of the same receiver channel and the beamspace processed channel.
It can be seen that the power level of the excitation signal has been effectively suppressed with
30 dB.

Fig. 8. Difference between cross correlation functions shows

the power level reduction in the received signal

4.2. Field measurements

We have measured the beamforming capabilities of the system also in real environment
using DVB-T reference signal. During the course of the experimental measurement we have
first determined the exact positions of a transmitter tower applying Capon’s direction of

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
14 T. Pető, R. Seller Arch. Elect. Eng.

arrival algorithm and then we applied interference suppression technique in the same way as it
was used in the calibration test.

Fig. 9. Measurement scenario

For the measurement we used the signals of a DVB-T transmitter operating in Budapest.
The transmitter tower is located at the Széchenyi-hill. The geometrical layout of the trans-
mitters and the receiver system is depicted in Fig. 9. After the completion of the measurement,
the downloaded IQ complex data was processed offline.

Fig. 10. Measured DOA of the DVB-T transmitter

tower located at the Széchenyi-hill with Capon’s method

Fig. 10 shows the results of the direction of arrival algorithm. Where, the function of the
DOA estimation has its maximum at 48 deg. Based on the preliminary calculated transmitter
direction we can conclude that the DOA of the DVB-T transmitter tower could be determined
precisely. The results of the direction of arrival algorithms match with the expected results.
After having measured the DOA of the reference signal, the antenna channels have been

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
Vol. 66 (2017) Quad channel software defined receiver for passive radar application 15

processed in order to produce the surveillance channel for the passive radar. The synthesized
beampattern can be seen in Fig. 11. Nulls are placed in the direction of the DVB-T transmitter.

Fig. 11. Synthesized surveillance channel beampattern for the experimental measurement

Correlation functions are calculated finally to estimate the achieved DPIS (Direct Path
Interference Suppression). The results are shown in Fig. 12. The reference curve shows the
autocorrelation function of the first receiver channel, while the other curve represents the
surveillance channel. Having examined the measurement results, 21 dB suppression has been
achieved.

Fig. 12. Estimation of the achieved DPIS in the field measurement

Based on the presented measurement results it can be concluded that the developed multi-
channel receiver platform performs properly as expected.

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM
16 T. Pető, R. Seller Arch. Elect. Eng.

5. Conclusions

In order to widespread the passive radar technology it is necessary to develop such hard-
ware supported systems that target the inherent advantages and difficulties of the passive
radars. The saturation of the electromagnetic environment provides great opportunity to pas-
sive radars, however special receiver platforms are required. In this paper we presented the
development of a passive radar receiver platform which applies modern system on chip archi-
tecture with high integrity, flexibility and signal processing capability. The operation of the
receiver structure has been tested with the DVB-T signal. The performance of the multichan-
nel operation including the DOA estimation, and the DPIS have been demonstrated. Further
researches can be done to effectively implement high performance passive radar signal
processsing algorithms utilizing the DSP capabilities of the SoC.

Acknowledgements
This work has been supported in the frame of the project “Multichannel passive ISAR imaging for mili-
tary applications (MAPIS) No. B-1359 IAP2 GP” of the European Defence Agency.

References
[1] Jamil K., Alam M., M. Hadi A., Alhekail Z.O., A multi-band multi-beam software-defined passive
radar part I: System design, IET International Conference on Radar Systems, Glasgow, United
Kingdom, pp. 1-4 (2012).
[2] Alam M., Jamil K., Alhekail Z.O., Al-Humaidi S., A multi-band multi-beam software-defined pas-
sive radar part II: Signal processing, IET International Conference on Radar Systems, Glasgow,
United Kingdom, pp. 1-5 (2012).
[3] Heunis S., Paichard Y., Inggs M., Passive Radar using a Software-Defined Radio Platform and
Opensource Software Tools, IEEE Radar Conference 2011, Kansas City, United States of America,
pp. 879-884 (2011).
[4] Wang Q., Hou C., Lu Y., An Experimental Study of WiMAX-Based Passive Radar, IEEE Transac-
tions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol.58, no. 12, pp. 3502-3510 (2010).
[5] Tan D.K.P., Sun H., Lu Y., Liu W., Feasibility analysis of GSM signal for passive radar, IEEE
Radar Conference 2003, Huntsville, United States of America, pp. 425-430 (2003).
[6] Peto T., Dudás L., Seller R., Péter Renner, Digital television broadcast-based passive radar
research and development, 20th International Conference on Microwaves, Radar, and Wireless
Communication (MIKON), Gdansk, Poland, pp. 1-4 (2014).
[7] Tao R., Wu H.Z., Shan T., Direct-path suppression by spatial filtering in digital television ter-
restrial broadcasting-based passive radar, IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, vol. 4, no. 6, pp.
791-805 (2010).
[8] Malanowski M., Kulpa K., Digital beamforming for Passive Coherent Location radar, IEEE Radar
Conference 2008, Rome, Italy pp. 1-6 (2008).
[9] Moscardini C., Conti M., Berizzi F et al., Spatial Adaptive Processing for Passive Bistatic Radar,
IEEE Radar Conference 2014, Cincinnati, United States of America, pp. 1061-1066 (2014).
[10] Conti M., Berizzi F., Martorella M. et al, High range resolution multichannel DVB-T passive
radar, IEEE, vol. 27, no. 10, pp. 37-42 (2012).

Brought to you by | Uniwersytetu Technologicznego w Szczecinie - Biblioteka Glówna Zachodniopomorskiego

Authenticated
Download Date | 3/2/17 8:39 AM