Ultra Low-Cost Passive Software Defined Radar / by Mohamed Zahran ; Supervisors : Dr Salem Aljareh.

Supervisors : Dr Salem Aljareh.

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Portsmouth University - Faculty of Engineering, 2017.

Includes bibliographical references (105-109 p.).

Passive bistatic radar utilises illuminators of opportunity such as FM, DAB, and DVB-T presented in the radio spectrum to track targets within their range. The main thesis objectives were the design of a low-cost DVB-T based passive bistatic radar using dual coherent RTL-SDR dongles, and to investigate the suitability of building multistatic passive radar by employing linear array with four Yagi-Uda antennas using N-Channel Coherent Receiver The evolution of RTL-SDR technology in the last few years has enabled more accessibility to design low-cost passive radars. This availability allowed an investigation based on the RTL-SDR receiver to determine its appropriateness in designing passive bistatic radars The results obtained from testing the RTL-SDR receiver showed some limitations including high noise figure and narrow bandwidth, which made use of DVB-T signals difficult due to the high bandwidth required by DVB-T signals. An examination was conducted to check the received signal characteristics. As a result of this examination, a bandpass filter was implemented to improve the received signal to noise ratio. Additionally ...