RF Based Target Search and Localization with microUVA

Autonomous Aerial Vehicle equipped with RF sensor provides a promising solution for a wide range of applications including search and rescue, vehicle localization, and navigation. We investigate such a micro UAV system and localization and navigation algorithms based on RF sensing. Our algorithm uses a particle filtering process to continuously monitor the RF signal from the target and estimate its most likely location. To improve the accuracy of the location estimation, our method uses a novel validation algorithm to screen the raw RF measurements and a scale estimation algorithm to model extrinsic parameters such as antenna gain. Experiment results indicate that the proposed system is able to navigate the micro UAV to the target device effectively within its RF range. An average location error of 3 meters is observed.