Optical and acoustical UAV detection

Recent world events have highlighted that the proliferation of UAVs is bringing with it a new and rapidly increasing threat for national defense and security agencies. Whilst many of the reported UAV incidents seem to indicate that there was no terrorist intent behind them, it is not unreasonable to assume that it may not be long before UAV platforms are regularly employed by terrorists or other criminal organizations. The flight characteristics of many of these mini- and micro-platforms present challenges for current systems which have been optimized over time to defend against the traditional air-breathing airborne platforms. A lot of programs to identify cost-effective measures for the detection, classification, tracking and neutralization have begun in the recent past. In this paper, lSL shows how the performance of a UAV detection and tracking concept based on acousto-optical technology can be powerfully increased through active imaging.