Wireless Signal Source Localization by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Using AERPAW Digital Twin and Testbed

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs) have a variety of applications, making them a focus of growing research interest. Estimates say that there could be over three million aerial vehicles taking to the skies in the next few years. Thus, it has become critical to develop and test mission-specific algorithms without compromising safety. Currently, FAA rules allow only Line-of-Sight(LoS) testing for Aerial Vehicles, which limits the number of applications that can be verified. Furthermore, validating infrastructure-intensive algorithms in the field is not feasible for every researcher. To mitigate this issue, remote research infrastructure testbeds have been developed. AERPAW is one such project funded by US NSF where researchers can develop their programs in a Digital Twin simulation environment which the AERPAW team will then test. In this paper, we have utilized the AERPAW testbed to develop a localization algorithm for finding the source of a radio signal using a single UAV. We observe the results and note the differences between the emulation and real-world conditions.