Multistatic Radar MASINT
The first radars used separate antennas for transmitting and receiving, until the development of the diplexer allowed the antenna to be shared, producing much more compact radar systems. Until the development of low-observability "stealth" technologies, compact antenna size was prized.
One of the first principles of stealth technology was to shape the surface of aircraft so that they did not reflect the transmitted beam directly back at the shared antenna. Another technique was to absorb some of the radar in the coating of the aircraft.
The more separate radar receiving antennas there are, the more likely it is that a reflection will go to a receiver distant from the transmitter. The graphic shows the terminology in bistatic radar, with a separate receiver and transmitter.
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