Projects:2017s1-125 Drone Imaging and Classification using Radar

Project Team

Elliot Hansen

Pranjal Chowdhury

Zikai Liu

Ran Li

Supervisors

Dr Brian Ng

Dr Waddah Al-Ashwal

Introduction

Drones have entered the modern lexicon due to their widespread uses in commercial, research and military contexts. Their prevalence is expected to increase in the coming years, with safety and privacy implications for society. This project explores the use of radar to perform imaging of drones, and attempts to understand the characteristics in their radar returns. Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) images will be simulated, and a radar system will be used to make real measurements of consumer drones in the School’s anechoic chamber. The outcome of this project will provide a cornerstone for building effective radar systems capable of surveillance and identification of drones.

Objectives

- Gain knowledge about the application of ISAR.

- Build an ISAR system capable of producing imagery of consumer drones.

- Form ISAR images of a consumer drone in an anechoic chamber.

- Analyse the images and understand the characteristics of the drones' radar returns.

Motivation

Drones have become popular in the modern world. They have many potential uses but also pose the following threats to society:

- Terrorist delivery device

- Collisions with commercial aircraft.

- Privacy concerns

Key selling points of ISAR over optical sensors:

- All weather capability

- Target and payload Identification

- Long range

Theory

ISAR exploits the rotational motion of a target to form a synthetic aperture, which increases the resolution of the images which can be formed by increasing the directivity of the antennas. A high resolution image requires a fine range resolution (Δ𝑟_𝑟=𝑐/2𝐵), requiring a large signal bandwidth (B) and a fine cross range resolution (Δ𝑟_𝑐𝑟=𝜆/2Ω), requiring a large aspect angle the target is viewed over (Ω).