Operational challenges of the multibeam radar sensor BIRALES for space surveillance

Abstract

This paper illustrates the Italian BIstatic RAdar for LEo Survey (BIRALES) sensor for Space Surveillance and Tracking in the LEO regime. BIRALES is a bistatic radar whose receiving part has been refurbished to synthetize up to 32 simultaneous beams in the antenna field of view. The multibeam configuration offers the possibility of estimating the track of the detected objects inside the receiver field of view by analysing the beams illumination sequence. The estimated track is then coupled with the available Doppler shift and slant range measurements. The availability of such a plethora of information is then exploited to perform initial orbit determination with a single passage of a resident space object inside the sensor field of view. This work describes BIRALES sensor setup and operation, showing the performance of the sensor in terms of observation and state estimation capabilities.