A Joint Rogue Drone Detection and Tracking Fusing DOA and Passive Radar Measurements

Advancements in unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) have led to a considerable increase in unlawful operations of these systems over critical infrastructures and public spaces. In this work, a system that is implemented utilizing software-defined radio and signals of opportunity (SOPs) and is based on the fusion of direction of arrival and passive radar sensor measurements is proposed to counter unlawful UAS/drone activities. Specifically, passive radar methodology applied on SOPs (data collection, disturbance cancellation, cross-ambiguity, and constant-false alarm rate detection functions), along with direction of arrival (DOA) measurements obtained via the multiple signal classification algorithm, are combined to detect and track the rogue UAS/target in an area under observation. A prototype implementation of the detection-and-tracking system, with the use of small embedded processing units and the robot operating system is developed and examined in numerous outdoor experiments to thoroughly evaluate its performance.