Theoretical foundation of passive bistatic ISAR imaging

Abstract

Passive bistatic inverse synthetic aperture radar (PB-ISAR) has been recently introduced to add an important capability to passive coherent location (PCL) systems. Although evidence of such capability has been provided, a theoretical background that supports such findings is needed to fully comprehend PB-ISAR imaging. This paper provides a full theoretical basis for PB-ISAR including a performance analysis in terms of spatial resolution. Examples with real data are also provided as case studies.