DVBS based Forward Scattering Radar for Drone Detection

The drone detection challenge of implementing satellite base passive radar for air surveillance among others were low received power, short integration time, target receiver ranges etc. Following some identified benefits of forward scattering radar (FSR) geometry over conventional radars such as improved radar cross section RCS value irrespective of radar absorbing material (RAM), direct signal perturbation and high resolutions, this paper aimed at a feasibility study of implementing passive FSR by using Measat3a/3/3b Malaysian Satellite for a drone detection. This was achieved by analyzing the signal properties such as ambiguity function, power budget, target-to-receiver range profile. The paper further validated the claim with an actual signal from the Measat3 satellite. The resulted analysis of the signal ambiguity, minimum acceptable signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) and the range profile was encouraging hence, manifesting the possibility of implementing this satellite for drone detection in FSR geometry.