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DETECTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF DRONES IN URBAN ENVIRONMENT WITH SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR IMAGES

Published

Author(s)

Jack Chuang, Chiehping Lai, David Griffith

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to study the radar imaging of a commercial drone (DJI Phantom III) in an artificial urban environment. A 10-GHz frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging system with a 1.5-GHz bandwidth was used inside an electromagnetic anechoic chamber to generate SAR images for target detection and characterization. Combinations of two ranges, two cross-ranges, and five altitude angles were considered in our laboratory SAR imaging. A brick wall was constructed inside the anechoic chamber and behind the drone to simulate the scenario of a drone flying very close to building structures in urban environment. From the initial SAR imaging and simulation results, we found that SAR imaging can be used to detect and distinguish different orientations of the drone in an artificial urban environment
Proceedings Title
IEEE CCSI
Conference Dates
May 20-23, 2024
Conference Location
Boulder, CO, US
Conference Title
NIST/IEEE Conference Computational Imaging Using Synthetic Apertures (CISA)

Keywords

Drones, SAR imaging, urban environment, simulation

Citation

Chuang, J. , Lai, C. and Griffith, D. (2025), DETECTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF DRONES IN URBAN ENVIRONMENT WITH SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR IMAGES, IEEE CCSI, Boulder, CO, US, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957890 (Accessed July 12, 2025)

Issues

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Created July 9, 2025
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