Overview of Electronic Attacks against Passive Radar

Passive radars (PR) are becoming more popular in both commercial and research environments. If, as they are expected to, become deployed in military surveillance applications, their vulnerability to electronic attacks (EA) needs to be thoroughly investigated. This paper presents aspects of countering FM, DAB and DVB-T based PR systems using various attack strategies. The effects of various jamming waveforms are investigated. It is shown that under certain conditions, successful EA can be achieved with relatively low power. We demonstrate the importance of a direct signal canceller which causes a FM based PR system to be more tolerant to jamming when the reference and surveillance antennas are co-located as opposed to being separated.