GLRT detection with unknown noise power in passive multistatic radar

Jun Liu, Hongbin Li, Braham Himed

Abstract: This paper considers the problem of passive detection with a multistatic radar system involving a non-cooperative illuminator of opportunity (IO) and multiple receive platforms. An unknown source signal is transmitted by the IO, which illuminates a target of interest. These receive platforms are geographically dispersed, and collect independent target echoes due to the illumination by the same IO. We propose a generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) detector to deal with the passive detection problem in the case of unknown noise power. Moreover, a closed-form expression for the probability of false alarm of this GLRT detector is given. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed GLRT detector generally outperforms its natural counterparts.