Abstract
This article presents the results of a series of measurements of multistatic radar signatures of small UAVs at L- and X-bands. The system employed was the multistatic multiband radar system, NeXtRAD, consisting of one monostatic transmitter-receiver and two bistatic receivers. NeXtRAD is capable of recording simultaneous bistatic and monostatic data with baselines and two-way bistatic range of the order of a few kilometres. The paper presents an empirical analysis with range-time plots and micro-Doppler signatures of UAVs and birds of opportunity recorded at several hundred metres of distance. A quantitative analysis of the overall signal-to-noise ratio is presented along with a comparison between the power of the signal scattered from the drone body and blades. A simple study with empirically obtained features and four supervised-learning classifiers for binary drone versus non-drone separation is also presented. The results are encouraging with classification accuracy consistently above 90% using very simple features and classification algorithms.
Highlights
The increasing presence and usage of commercially available small drones is presenting commercial opportunities and challenges and potential threats
This article presents the results of a series of measurements of multistatic radar signatures of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) at L‐ and X‐bands
Each node is equipped with a GPS Disciplined Oscillator (GPSDO) [10] to establish and maintain time and phase coherency during operations, which is fundamental for collecting valuable bistatic data in the Doppler domain
Summary
The increasing presence and usage of commercially available small drones is presenting commercial opportunities (e.g. applications in filming, agriculture, inspections, delivery, monitoring, and surveillance) and challenges and potential threats (from illegal or intrusive filming to more serious smuggling of drugs into prison, disruption to airports, and potential usage of weaponised drones). Each node is equipped with a GPS Disciplined Oscillator (GPSDO) [10] to establish and maintain time and phase coherency during operations, which is fundamental for collecting valuable bistatic data in the Doppler domain. The data are recorded in binary format as three individual channels of 16‐bit in‐phase and quadrature samples, with an effective sample rate of 180 MHz. At L‐band, where Doppler ambiguity requirements are less stringent, only one receiver chain is present, meaning that four measurements would be needed to collect complete polarisation data. We report some preliminary results where the system was operated over relatively long baselines in the range of hundreds of metres These were collected over a couple of weeks of experimental campaign performed in December 2018, in Simon's Town, South Africa, with the collaboration of academic partners (UCT, UCL, University of Glasgow) and FFI (Norway). We observe that during an interval of 20 s, the target covers about
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