Passive Multistatic Hitchhiking Array for Search, Track, and Target Recognition

The proposed concept utilizes a completely passive, multistatic, 'hitchhiking' scheme to provide surveillance and potentially target imaging. The concept has numerous advantages: it is 1) completely passive and covert, 2) capable of performing search, track and target identification of air or ground targets (depending on the deployment scheme), 3) relatively inexpensive to develop and deploy, 4) survivable, and has an intrinsically graceful performance degradation with loss of receiver elements, and 5) uses current equipment with a minimum of modification. The proposed array would be capable of operating in any of three modes consisting of a forward scatter 'tripwire' mode, a conventional search/track mode, and an imaging mode. Switching between modes is a software function, and several of the modes may actually be operated simultaneously. Military applications of this concept are myriad, including both air and ground surveillance. Civilian direct microwave applications include air traffic control, perimeter security, border patrol/interdiction and surface tracking of ships for harbor management. May be applied to sonar arrays, subsurface ground mapping, and ionispheric shouding.