Low Cost Antenna Array Based Drone Tracking Device for Outdoor Environments

Abstract

Applications of direction of arrival (DoA) techniques have dramatically increased in various areas ranging from the traditional wireless communication systems and rescue operations to GNSS systems and drone tracking. Particularly, police forces and security companies have drawn their attention to drone tracking devices, in order to provide the safeness of citizens and of clients, respectively. In this paper, we propose a low cost antenna array based drone tracking device for outdoor environments. The proposed solution is divided into hardware and software parts. The hardware part of the proposed device is based on off-the-shelf components such as an omnidirectional antenna array, a 4-channel software defined radio (SDR) platform with carrier frequency ranging from 70 MHz to 6 GHz, a FPGA motherboard, and a laptop. The software part includes algorithms for calibration, model order selection (MOS), and DoA estimation, including specific preprocessing steps and a tensor-based estimator to increase the DoA accuracy. We evaluate the performance of our proposed low cost solution in outdoor scenarios. According to our measurement campaigns, we show that when the array is in the front fire position, i.e., with a DoA ranging from -60° to 60°, the maximum and the average DoA errors are 6° and 1,9°, respectively.

A Review of Counter-UAS Technologies for Cooperative Defensive Teams of Drones

“…In the first case, the results are less accurate than in the second. For example, in [42], an architecture based on an array of four antennas and an SDR platform for processing was proposed, in which an angular precision between 1.9 • and 6 • was achieved over a coverage range between −60 • and 60 • . In [43], an experiment was presented in which, thanks to the use of commercial SDR platforms (FPGA-based), it was possible to localize small drones with a maximum range of 75 m. Although previous publications have been ground-based, they described techniques that could also be used on-board.…”

Direction of Arrival Estimation Based on Received Signal Strength Using Two-Row Electronically Steerable Parasitic Array Radiator Antenna

“…To address WSN connectivity challenges in practical industrial installations [25,26] and also possible drone applications [29,30], in which the elevation of WSN nodes may significantly vary, a two-row ESPAR antenna concept has been proposed recently that has 12 passive elements arranged in two rows around the active element. It is capable to create 18 directional radiation patterns covering 3 different elevation directions [31].…”

“…Combined connectivity and DoA estimation capabilities can highly improve IoT systems involving WSN nodes and gateways installed on the ground in smart factories, buildings and cities [1][2][3]5,6,25,26]. Moreover, it can be used in modern IoT applications involving long-range communication to such objects as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), high-altitude pseudo-satellites (HAPS) or satellite platforms [29,30,32,33], in which the elevation between transceiver and receiver may change in a fast manner. In this regard particularly interesting and growing application area, in which beamforming plays significant role, is providing multiple access and increased security in satellite and aerial integrated networks for IoT communication [34][35][36][37].…”

Two-Row ESPAR Antenna With Simple Elevation and Azimuth Beam Switching

“…The increasing number of applications requires localization of objects that are moving or are located on different heights and distances within the same area. The most practical and relevant examples include industrial sites [5], [6] and drone applications [7], [8], in which the relative height between a localized object and a base station may vary. For this reason, dedicated reconfigurable antenna systems are being developed and integrated within final applications [5], [7], [9], [10].…”

“…In consequence, one may expect higher DoA estimation errors underneath the antenna in many practical situations, e.g. when base stations are mounted on different heights across industrial sites [5], [6] or are placed on inspection drones [7], [8], in which the relative height between a localized object and a base station may dynamically change.…”