Advances in ISAR processing for High Resolution Cross-Range Profiling with Passive Radar

This paper presents advanced processing strategies for cross-range profiling of moving targets via ISAR (Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar) processing in WiFi-based passive radar. In particular, it is firstly shown that the disturbance removal stage of the WiFi-based passive radar processing scheme might have a degrading effect on the quality of the ISAR processing which results in a reduction of the cross-range profiling performance. To cope with this limitation, a new approach is proposed for the cancellation stage which aims at preserving the target Signal to Noise Ratio while still removing the disturbance contribution. This approach is shown to yield better performance with respect to conventional cancellation methods while yielding a remarkable saving in terms of computational load. The performance of the ISAR processing is shown by means of an experimental case study, where the cross-range profiling of two identical cars is performed. The data set has been collected by means of an experimental setup developed and fielded at the DIET Dept. - University of Rome "La Sapienza". The fruitful obtained results allowed us to demonstrate the potentialities of a WiFi-based passive ISAR for classification and identification of moving objects.