Effects of Bistatic Operation in Harmonic Radar

Harmonic radar systems are used to interrogate, or track a location of, passive nonlinear targets in highly cluttered environments, and they are notorious for their poor power efficiency and low detection ranges. Due to harmonic operation, the received signal power close to maximum range becomes inversely proportional to the fourth power of the forward distance (from the radar transmitter to the harmonic target), compared against the inverse second power law for the return distance (from the harmonic target back to the radar receiver). This difference provides additional degrees of freedom for system design when a harmonic radar transmitter and receiver can be positioned at different distances to the target. This paper investigates the effect this has on detection range in harmonic radar.