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Slow-Moving Micro-UAV Detection With A Small Scale Digital Array Radar
Slow-Moving Micro-UAV Detection With A Small Scale Digital Array Radar
Abstract—The detection of slow-moving and small Radar Cross update rate. Furthermore, DAR offers hardware advantages for
Section (RCS) micro-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be detecting small targets in heavy-clutter environments in terms
challenging. Typically, radar returns from such targets are very of relaxed receiver dynamic range requirements, enhanced
low in magnitude, buried in close to carrier phase noise and
background clutter. Digital Array Radar (DAR) architecture phase-noise and spurs performance [11], [12]. In this paper,
enables various array processing methods that can improve the we demonstrate a small scale DAR capable of detecting a
capability of a radar. For instance, Digital Beamforming (DBF) slow-moving and small RCS drone at a relatively long range.
techniques are applied in DAR to improve the search ability In section II, description of the developed radar is presented.
of the system. Multiple surveillance beams can be synthesized Section III illustrates experimental results obtained with the
concurrently to cover a wide search volume, enabling DAR to
virtually stare at targets for much longer intervals compared developed system against a micro-UAV.
to beam scanning radars. Consequently, Doppler resolution
of the radar is improved significantly, allowing for enhanced
discrimination of slow targets from stationary clutter. This paper II. S YSTEM D ESCRIPTION
illustrates the development and experimentation of a small scale
DAR prototype, operating in S band, applied to detect a slow A. Radar Prototype Description
moving micro-UAV target at a relatively long range.
Throughout our development of DAR prototype, Commer-
Index Terms—Digital Array Radar, micro-UAV, Software De- cial of the Shelf (COTS) components were leveraged as
fined Radar, Digital Beamforming, Doppler Processing, Drone building blocks for the radar hardware. The receiver array was
Detection. built by utilizing Software-Defined Radio (SDR) receivers (NI
PXIe 5663), synchronized by sharing a Local-Oscillator (LO)
I. I NTRODUCTION between the receivers front-end, and sharing a reference Clock
Recent progress in the development of micro-UAVs has source between the digitizers. Similarly, the transmitter is a
made them more affordable and easily procurable for the COTS SDR module (NI PXIe 5673). For transmitter-receiver
average consumer. Commercial drones are being used in sev- synchronization, a reference clock source is shared between
eral applications and industries such as: inspections, delivery, the transmitter and the receiver array. Signal conditioning
filming, etc. However, micro-UAVs pose a serious threat to components were added to the system, such as Low-Noise
security-sensitive facilities and infrastructures. They can be Amplifiers (LNAs), and Power Amplifier (PA). The LNAs
equipped with several sensors (e.g. cameras and microphones) were placed immediately after the receiving antennas, to
and be utilized for spying purposes, or potentially be exploited reduce the overall receiver Noise Figure and enhance the radar
in disruption and sabotage activities (e.g flying drones near sensitivity. In the transmit side, the PA was placed before
airport runways to disrupt air-traffic). Radar systems are em- the transmit antenna, to amplify the generated waveform and
ployed to detect such threats, due to their ability to provide transmit adequate RF power for improved target detection.
early warning and all-weather operation capability [1], [3], and RF-switching circuit was added before the receive array for
[10]. Digital array radars have the potential for improved de- internal array calibration. The calibration is performed by
tection performance of slow-moving and small RCS targets. In injecting RF signal internally to measure channel-to-channel
these systems, every element in the transmit-array is preceded amplitude and phase differences, and calibrate the array during
by a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), and every element in radar operation. DAR signal processing is divided among two
the receive-array is followed by an Analog to Digital Converter processing platforms, a multi-core Central Processing Unit
(ADC), allowing for a great deal of operational flexibility (CPU) and a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The
compared to their analog counterpart. For instance, DAR CPU was used for overall system control, and low data-rate
system can employ techniques like transmit beam-spoiling and radar processing functions. The FPGA was mainly utilized for
DBF on receive, permitting long integration-time on targets for high-throughput signal processing in the receiver side, refer to
finer Doppler resolution, whilst maintaining adequate search Fig. 1. for system block diagram.
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Fig. 1. DAR Prototype Block Diagram.
B 2
h −N i
τ
hN i
τ
The MF operation was implemented in the FPGA side of
x[n] = Aejπ fs Nτ n , n = , ..., 0, ..., (1) the radar processor. The FPGA used in the system is NI’s
2 2
FlexRIO 7965R, a Xilinx’s Virtex-5 SX95T FPGA. Table
I shows the MF code compilation summary report of the
where x[n] denotes the nth waveform sample, A is the device utilization.
waveform magnitude, B is the waveform bandwidth, fs is the
waveform sampling rate, and Nτ is the number of samples 3) Digital Beamforming: DBF is performed after the
corresponding to waveform duration τ . matched filtering operation, by multiplying the digital array
samples with beamforming coefficients, and summing the
2) Radar Matched Filtering: Once the received signals are output to produce the desired beam, as shown in (5)[9]:
digitized, the received samples are fed to the FPGA to per-
M −1
form radar Matched Filtering (MF). This function is typically X
∗
performed at a high data-rate (four MFs are implemented y= wm rm (5)
m=0
in parallel for the four-channel array). The matched filter
coefficients are computed in the Radar Waveform Generation wm = am ejφm , m = 0, 1, ..., M − 1 (6)
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TABLE I
D EVICE U TILIZATION S UMMAY R EPORT
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TABLE II
S YSTEM PARAMETERS F OR L INK B UDGET C ALCULATION
s
4
Pt Gt Gr λ2 σ
Rmax = (8)
(4π)3 Pr,min
Fig. 7. DAR system setup (inside the vehicle).
By using (8), a theoretical maximum detection Range Rmax
(m) is calculated, for a target with a Radar Cross Section σ TABLE III
(m2 ), using a radar that transmits a power of Pt (Watt), with DAR S YSTEM C ONFIGURATIONS
a transmit antenna gain Gt , and a receive antenna gain Gr , Instantaneous Bandwidth (B) 40 MHz
with radar operating wavelength of λ (m), and a minimum System Sampling Rate (fs ) 50 MS/sec
detectable receive power Pr,min (Watt). Waveform Type LFM (CW)
Table II shows the radar system parameters, with a calcu-
Waveform duration (τ ) 40.96 µsec
lated maximum detection range of 1681 m. The target assumed
Coherent Processing Interval (CPI) 0.299 sec
in the calculation is a micro-UAV (DJI Mavic Pro), with 0.03
Range Resolution 3.75 m
m2 averaged RCS taken from the simulation results in the
Velocity Resolution 0.21 m/sec
previous section (S Band).
III. DAR E XPERIMENTS
Fig. 7 shows the hardware setup from inside the vehicle,
A. Measurement Configuration
which includes a signal generator for receiver array calibration,
The measurements took place inside King Saud University four Vector Signal Analyzers, Vector Signal Generator, power
campus in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The cooperative amplifier, and associated power supplies.
target (micro-UAV, Mavic Pro) flew within the transmitter and
receiver coverage, as shown in Fig. 5. The target average B. Experimental Results
speed during the receding phase of the flight scenario was 1.15 During the experiments, DAR system was configured as
m/sec, and it was 3.27 m/sec during the approaching phase. shown in Table III. An LFM waveform (continuous wave)
Measurements were carried out using a ready equipped with 40.96 µsec duration was generated (this corresponds to
vehicle with its own power generators as shown in Fig. 6. Nτ of 2048 samples). DAR system parameters such as transmit
The receiving antennas are mounted on top of the vehicle with power and antenna gains are as indicated in Table II.
LNAs and RF switching (calibration) circuits integrated in the Fig. 8 shows the overall DAR detections of the micro-UAV
same Radome. during the flight scenario described in A. Detection probability
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Fig. 10. Range-Velocity Map snapshot, accumulated (from 600 m to 100 m,
Fig. 8. Accumulated DAR detections after CFAR (the true drone range- black plot is the true drone flight profile).
velocity flight profile plotted in red for Receding, and green for Approaching).
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