Sugar Tree radar explained

Sugar Tree is the name of a bistatic over-the-horizon radar built by the US in the 1960s.[1] [2] The key idea in Sugar Tree was a reinvention of the Klein Heidelberg Nazi German passive radar system developed for use in the Second World War. Sugar Tree was a "covert hitchhiker using Soviet, surface-wave HF radio broadcast signals and a remote sky-wave receiver to detect Soviet ballistic missile launches". The key idea, in other words, is to receive radar reflections without oneself transmitting a radar signal by using instead some other signal, typically one that originates from the adversary. [3]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Willis , Nicholas J. . Advances in Bistatic Radar . Hugh . Griffiths . 2007 . 9781891121487 . SciTech Publishing . 54–55.
  2. Chong Sze Sing, 2014. Thesis submitted to the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. "Passive multistatic detection of maritime targets using opportunistic radar".
  3. Willis, N & Griffiths, H (eds), Advances in Bistatic Radar, SciTech Publishing, Raleigh, NC 2007, cited in Willis & Griffiths " Klein Heidelberg – a WW2 bistatic radar system that was decades ahead of its time". http://www.cdvandt.org/K-H%20final.pdf