Multistatic radar

A multistatic radar system contains multiple spatially diverse radar transmitters and receivers with data fusion between component parts. The spatial diversity afforded by multistatic systems allows different aspects of a target to be viewed simultaneously. The potential for information gain can give rise to a number of advantages over conventional systems.

Example multistatic radar systems can consist of: (a) a combination of monostatic radar or bistatic radar components with a shared area of coverage, (b) multiple receivers with a single transmitter, (c) multiple transmitter and receivers.

Multistatic radar is often referred to as "multisite" or "netted" radar and is comparable with the idea of macrodiversity in communications. The MIMO radar may appear similar to (c), but it is more of a phased array technique counting as a single "site" (microdiversity). It is also closely related to the use of MIMO in communications.