Coherent integration loss due to pulses loss and phase modulation in passive bistatic radar

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the amplitude and phase modulation effect incurred by the rotating transmit antenna in passive bistatic radar, which result in pulses loss and phase reversals within the direct-path pulse train. The processing loss mechanisms of signal to noise ratio (SNR) and offsets in target Doppler measurements caused by the pulses loss and phase reversals are described. The expressions of the peak output of cross-ambiguity function are derived to evaluate SNR loss in the presence of pulses loss or/and phase reversals. Simulation results show that the maximum SNR loss is about 3.5 dB, and the SNR loss curves for various Doppler frequencies and different number of lost pulses are conformed to the theoretical analysis. The SNR loss gets progressively worse with increasing target Doppler frequency. The frequency estimation error increases with target Doppler frequency and lost pulse number, up to a worst case of about 0.75 of a Doppler cell.