Passive Radar - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advocates of the technology cite the following advantages:

• Lower procurement cost
• Lower costs of operation and maintenance, due to the lack of transmitter and moving parts
• Covert operation, including no need for frequency allocations
• Physically small and hence easily deployed in places where conventional radars cannot be
• Capabilities against stealth aircraft due to the frequency bands and multistatic geometries employed
• Rapid updates, typically once a second
• Difficulty of jamming
• Resilience to anti-radiation missiles

Opponents of the technology cite the following disadvantages:

• Immaturity
• Reliance on third-party illuminators
• Complexity of deployment
• 2D operation