Localization of UAVs Using Acoustic Signals Collected by Distributed Acoustic-Electric Sensors

Aiming at the UAV(unmanned aerial vehicle) security needs of sensitive places such as museums, airports and prisons, this paper proposes a UAV acoustic localization method based on distributed acoustic-electric sensors. Compared with traditional optical means, acoustic sensing is not restricted by light conditions and can realize all-weather UAV monitoring. The innovativeness is reflected in: 1) adopting a new type of acoustic-electrical sensor array, improving acoustic detection sensitivity through piezoelectric-electromagnetic coupling mechanism, and the amplitude-frequency response covers the frequency range of UAV acoustic signals; 2) designing a distributed single-array-element topology, which breaks through the rigid layout limitation of the traditional arrays, and improves the flexibility of deployment; 3) proposing a multiscale time-delay estimation algorithm, and effectively responding to time-varying acoustic signals of UAVs through the strategy of generalized mutual correlation and information fusion. The generalized mutual correlation and information fusion strategies are used to effectively deal with the time-varying non-stationary characteristics of UAV acoustic signals. Experiments show that the localization error in each individual spatial dimension (x, y, z) can be controlled within 1 meter in a typical scenario with a signal-to-noise ratio of 15-30 dB, and the robustness of the system is significantly enhanced. This technology provides a new type of solution for urban low altitude security, and its modularized architecture is easy to integrate with the existing monitoring system, which is of great practical value for maintaining airspace security and building an intelligent security system.