Direction Finding Method for EW System (ADALM-Pluto SDR)

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Fatih sevimli

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May 2, 2026, 3:59:23 AM (14 days ago) May 2

to Amateur radio interferometry

Hello everyone,

I am working on building an electronic warfare (EW) system for a competition using an ADALM-Pluto SDR. As part of this system, I will also need to implement a direction-finding capability.

The signals of interest may be analog or digital, and can be either narrowband or wideband. The system is expected to operate across a wide frequency range, from lower bands such as 433 MHz up to higher bands like 2.4 GHz.

For the direction-finding part, I am trying to decide which method would be more suitable: pseudo-Doppler direction finding or an interferometer-based approach.

For an interferometer system, I understand that I would need multiple SDR channels with very good phase coherence, which seems challenging with ADALM-Pluto SDRs. On the other hand, pseudo-Doppler can work with a single SDR channel by switching between multiple antennas, but I am unsure about its achievable accuracy and limitations, especially across different bandwidths and frequencies.

What are your thoughts on this? Which method would be more practical and reliable in this kind of system? Are there any important trade-offs or implementation challenges I should consider?