Detection and Classification of UAV Using Propeller Doppler Profiles for Counter UAV Systems

The purpose of this paper is to develop an electronic system which detects and classifies an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). For detection and classification of a target UAV, an X Band Continuous Wave (CW) Radar is designed. The corresponding micro-Doppler signatures were picked up and the signals are further processed in the system which gave various spectrographic patterns that enable us to detect and classify the UAV. To perform the signal processing on the received data, the MATLAB environment is used. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and short-time Fourier transform (STFT) are used to get Doppler information and frequency-time profile respectively, in this work. To test the system and check its performance, a quadcopter of multiple propeller blades was designed and used as a target. The entire set up was built in our radar Laboratory and experiments are conducted in the open-field environment. In this paper, significance of such UAV detections/classifications, development of a CW radar, radar signal acquisition/processing, extraction of main and micro Doppler signatures and using them for the UAV classifications are presented. In addition to classifications, the lengths of the propellers blades are also calculated using the extracted Doppler profile. All the experimental results related to these detections, classifications and measurements are reported and analysed.