IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - August 2022 - 36

Feature Article:
DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2022.3178973
Integrating Multiband Active and Passive Radar
for Enhanced Situational Awareness
Dietrich Fr€anken , Thomas Ott, Steffen Lutz, and Fabienne Hoffmann,
Hensoldt Sensors, Ulm 89077, Germany
Piotr Samczynski and Marek P»otka
Warszawa 00665, Poland
Mateusz Dro _zka
, PIT-RADWAR, Warszawa 04051, Poland
ChristofSch€upbach, armasuisse Science and Technology, Thun 3602,
Switzerland
Zenon Mathews, Swiss Air Force, EW& ISR, D€ubendorf 8600, Switzerland
Samuel Welschen
, ETH Z€urich, Z€urich 8092, Switzerland
Idar Norheim-Næss, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI),
Kjeller 2027, Norway
, Warsaw University of Technology,
INTRODUCTION
Modern radar systems play an essential role in many
fields of everyday life. The main recognized application
is air traffic surveillance [1], [2]. In the beginning, these
systems were primarily used by military users, especially
during World War II [3]. Later, these solutions
were adopted to control civilian air traffic. Nowadays,
in air surveillance applications, active radars play a significant
role. However, passive radars' technology,
Authors' current address: D. Fr€anken, T. Ott, S. Lutz,
and F. Hoffmann, Hensoldt Sensors, Ulm 89077, Germany
(e-mail: dietrich.fraenken@hensoldt.net; thomas.
ott@hensoldt.net; steffen.lutz2@hensoldt.net; fabienne.
hoffmann@hensoldt.net). P. Samczynski and M. P»otka,
Warsaw University of Technology, Warszawa 00665,
Poland (e-mail: piotr.samczynski@pw.edu.pl; marek.
plotka@pw.edu.pl). M. Dro_zka, PIT-RADWAR, Warszawa
04051, Poland (e-mail: Mateusz.Drozka@pitradwar.
com). C. Sch€upbach, armasuisse Science and Technology,
Thun 3602, Switzerland (e-mail: Christof.Schuepbach@ar.
admin.ch). Z. Mathews, Swiss Air Force, EW & ISR,
D€ubendorf 8600, Switzerland (e-mail: zenon.mathews@vtg.
admin.ch). S. Welschen, ETH Z€urich, Z€urich 8092, Switzerland
(e-mail: samuel.welschen@ief.ee.ethz.ch). I. NorheimNæss,
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI),
Kjeller 2027, Norway (e-mail: Idar.Norheim-Nass@ffi.no).
Manuscript received 25 July 2021, revised 2 February
2022; accepted 13 May 2022, and ready for publication
26 May 2022.
Review handled by Daniel O'Hagan.
0885-8985/22/$26.00 ß 2022 IEEE
36
which has been forgotten for decades in the twentieth
century,1 has rapidly entered the maturity stage in
recent years. Although active radars have numerous
advantages (e.g., good range estimation, good range
and angle resolution, good surveillance of high-altitude
targets), this technology also has many disadvantages:
easy to detect during operation, high energy consumption,
hard to operate in a covert manner and low refresh
rate when using mechanically scanned antennas [5].
To solve some of these problems, passive sensors,
such as passive emitter tracking (PET) [also known as an
electronic support measures (ESM)] and especially passive
coherent location (PCL), can be employed [6]. Nowadays,
multiple solutions exist, including PCL radar Silent
Sentry from Lockheed Martin [7], PET sensor VERA-NG
from ERA [8], PCL radar MUSCL from PATRIA [9],
PCL radar Twinvis from Hensoldt [10], combined PET/
PCL solution from PIT-RADWAR [11], and many
more [12], [13]. Combining advantages of active and passive
sensors can be done employing multisensor data
fusion techniques [14].
The history of multisensor data fusion started in the
1970s [15], [16]. The multihypothesis tracking technique
was frequently used to handle multi-target situations in a
cluttered environment [17]. At first, to achieve better air
surveillance's situation picture, data from active radars,
1It should be pointed out here that passive radar technology is in
many cases identified as a precursor of all radar technology. It
should be remembered that the first demonstration of passive radar
occurred in the year 1935 (the well-known Daventry experiment,
conducted by Sir Watson-Watt [4]).
IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
AUGUST 2022
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6026-5487 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8959-3313 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2663-1666 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3508-0533
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