A passive, multistatic, satellite based radar for maritime vessel detection and tracking

The largest border in the United States is not the boundary between the US and Canada or the US and Mexico, but the coastlines. Maintaining security of our territorial waters is essential in the face of an increasingly hostile world. Current maritime security strategy rests on four pillars; awareness, prevention, protection, and, response. Of these, awareness is arguably the most important; however, security is presently dependent on various non-persistent coastal, limited national technical means, limited deployed organic sensors, limited automatic identification systems (AIS), and some ports with vessel tracking systems. There is a pressing need for maritime domain awareness encompassing persistent harbor, coastal and wide area surveillance. IPI proposes a Maritime Passive Multi-Static Moving Target Indicator (MTI) sensor mounted on buoy platforms. Only the receiver/processor portion of the sensor would be aboard since transmitters of opportunity are being utilized eliminating the weight of the transmitter and significantly reducing the power requirements. This makes the proposed sensor lighter, smaller, lower power, and lower cost than traditional sensor systems. It will provide day/night, all-weather capability while also providing the advantages of a passive sensor?i.e. no telltale radiation from the system to allow intruders to detect and possibly avoid the sensor net.