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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Passive radar using my hacked dual coherent chann


From: Juha Vierinen
Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Passive radar using my hacked dual coherent channel rtl_sdr dongle
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 21:11:57 -0400

Hi,

I'm just using a simple script to dump data to disk. I then have another program that analyzes the files. It is not too complicated. The measurement equation is a convolution with the assumption that the target is stationary over ~20 ms and that the ground clutter is stationary over ~1 second. 

My code is a mess at the moment and it depends on other unpublished libraries that I have written, which are also a mess.  I might release this once I have cleaned it up a bit. 

juha


On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 9:00 AM, M Dammer <address@hidden> wrote:
This is awesome. How did you analyze the data ? Is the software/source (both grc setup and data analysis) available ?
Mark


On 25/09/13 23:23, Juha Vierinen wrote:
I hooked up my dual coherent channel rtl_sdr dongle into two of our passive radar antennas that we have here (log-periodic antennas pointing North and South). After fine tuning gains and signal levels, I acquired some FM radio data (WWLI 105.1 MHz). To my surprise, I got passive radar echoes from airplanes when I analyzed the data. Passive radar is one of the most challenging types of radar because the requirements for dynamic range are larger than those for eg., pulsed radar, I really didn't expect much from my test. 

I expect the $16 system to also be able to see specular meteor echoes (typically stronger than airplanes) and ionospheric field aligned irregularity echoes. Not bad for something that required about $10k-$100k investment in a digital receivers ten years ago, and a $2k investment yesterday. 

Visually, the rtl_sdr dongle system has a little bit more noise than the usrp n200 with a tvrx2. And also, there is the hassle of aligning samples. So I would still use the usrp if given a choice, as it does perform better and requires no hacking.

Here is the passive radar video I just made using my $16 dual channel rtl_sdr (the timestamp is broken, but I just did the measurement an hour ago):

For comparison, here is an example passive radar video of airplanes and specular meteor echoes done using a usrp n200 + tvrx2. This was earlier, so the targets aren't the same:

Does anyone know who manufactures these dongles, or who designed it?

PS. I ordered a seven port usb hub, in anticipation of adding more coherent channels (to do interferometry and maybe imaging). It seems that every time I browse ebay, I end up ordering a few dongles. 

juha


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