A Low Cost Phase Array Solution for UAV Collision Avoidance

Abstract

With the growing emergence of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in military and civilian applications, collision avoidance capabilities, analogous to what exists for manned aircraft, are essential for these systems to operate within the National Airspace System (NAS) in proximity to manned aircraft and other UAVs. This capability would also enable new classes of UAV missions such as formation flying. However, UAV systems are typically constrained by system and operational costs and have limited available power and space for additional system components. In this paper, we present an approach to develop a low cost phased array antenna system as part of an affordable, compact, low-power collision avoidance radar for UAVs.