Using Modern Illuminators of Opportunity for Passive Radar Applications

Tutorial Description:

This tutorial will focus on developing the understanding of advanced principles and concepts using new, modern illuminators of opportunity (IoO). It starts from the basic concepts by discussing the possible illuminators, the impact of the geometry, as well as the passive radar equation. Subsequently, the tutorial will move on to develop advanced topics, where new frontiers in passive radar based on new, modern wideband illuminators of opportunity, such as 5G/6G, Wi-Fi, DVB-S and satellite constellations (e.g., STARLINK, OneWeb, SAR constellations), will be discussed. This includes different standards, challenges, opportunities and limitations, with the focus on modern applications for in passive radars (e.g., target detection, classification, SAR/ISAR imaging), supported by numerous examples of experimental results. By the end of the tutorial, participants will have acquired an understanding relating to passive radar using new wideband illuminators of opportunity, and the required signal processing techniques. 

Mr. Detmer Bosma (TNO) 

Detmer A. Bosma received a M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering at the Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, in 2021. He graduated at the Microwave Sensing, Systems and Signals (MS3) department on Signal- and Data Processing of Polarimetric Radar Data. With this work, he was awarded the Young Scientist Award at the 2022 International Radar Symposium (IRS) in Gdansk, Poland.

Since 2022, he works as a Radar Scientist at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO, the Hague, the Netherlands. He has also served as a visiting scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute FHR in Wachtberg, Germany. His main research interests include passive radar, bistatic & multistatic radar and radar networks.

He supports the research work and significantly contributed to numerous Sensors and Electronics Technology (SET) activities under the NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO). Since 2023, he is a member of the NATO SET-320 Research Task Group (RTG) on New Frontiers in Modern Passive Radar, and he is in the Organization Committee of the NATO SET‐IST‐352 Research Specialists Meeting (RSM).

Bosma is a Technical Program Committee (TPC) Co-Chair of the 2025 Signal Processing Symposium, Warsaw, Poland.