DVB-T based passive radar for simultaneous counter-drone operations and civil air traffic surveillance
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Fabiola Colone; Tatiana Martelli; Roberta Cardinali
- Source
- Subject
- Signal processing
Computer science
Real-time computing
020206 networking & telecommunications
02 engineering and technology
Air traffic control
Drone
Passive radar
passive radar
digital video broadcasting
airports
aircraft
air traffic
simultaneous counter-drone operations
civil air traffic surveillance
counter drones operations
airport terminal areas
simultaneous short-range surveillance
RCS drones
conventional air traffic
DVB-T based passive radar
civil aircraft
AULOS passive sensor
signal processing
algorithmic solutions
Terminal (electronics)
Digital Video Broadcasting
0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
DVB-T
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
- Language
- English
The effectiveness of DVB-T based passive radar (PR) in counter drones operations is investigated in this study aiming at monitoring airport terminal areas. In particular, the authors demonstrate that such sensors could be effectively employed to provide simultaneous short-range surveillance against drones and long-range monitoring of aircraft from civil air traffic. To this purpose, several experimental tests have been performed with the DVB-T based AULOS® passive sensor developed by Leonardo S.p.A. using very small RCS drones as cooperative targets along with conventional air traffic as targets of opportunity. An appropriate signal processing architecture is proposed for the two search tasks to be accomplished simultaneously. This is extensively applied against the collected datasets, based on the algorithmic solutions devised by the research group at Sapienza University. The reported results clearly prove the capability of a DVB-T based PR of simultaneously detecting and localising drones flying around the airport area as well as the typical civil aircraft at longer distances.