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Geographic location could fall out as a side-effect of increased use of passive radar. Whilst it hasn't happened yet, the UK is testing whether it can use pass
by femto 12y ago
Geographic location could fall out as a side-effect of increased use of passive radar. Whilst it hasn't happened yet, the UK is testing whether it can use passive radar for air-traffic control [1]. If a radar receiver can figure out the position of a target, it would be even easier (no losses due to reflection) for the target to receive the same signals and figure out its own position. With a wide-band receiver, using all available incidental sources, it would also be hard to jam, since an adversary would have to have control over the entire electromagnetic environment. It would be even harder to jam if the receiver was using a phased array to figure out directions to sources, allowing it to null interference.
[1] http://www.atc-network.com/atc-news/airbus-defence-and-space-awarded-caa-study-for-passive-radar-use http://www.atc-network.com/atc-news/airbus-defence-and-space...
- Johnythree 12y agoSounds a lot like "VHF omnidirectional range" (VOR) which dates back to 1946. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range
- femto 12y agoIn so far as VOR is the locational analogue of traditional "rotating beam" radar, but there the similarity stops. VOR has a known structure to its intended transmissions. Passive radar relies on incidental transmissions, and the system learns about any structure in the received transmissions. Passive radar has potential for much greater accuracy (better than GPS??), as it can potentially use a huge bandwidth.