Triangular Phase Shift Detector for Drone Precise Vertical Landing RF Systems

This article presents a circuit for the precise vertical landing of drones based on a three phase-shifts detection of a single frequency transmitted from the landing point. The circuit can be considered as a new navigation sensor that assists in guidance corrections for landing at a specific point. The circuit has three inputs to which the signal transmitted from an oscillator located at the landing point arrives with different delays. The input signals are combined in pairs in each of the three analog phase detectors, after having passed through 3 dB at 90° hybrid couplers that guarantee a theoretical nonambiguous phase shift range of ±90°. Each output has a voltage that is proportional to the phase shift between each of the input signals, which in turn depends on the position relative to the landing point. A simple landing algorithm based on phase shift values is proposed, which could be integrated into the same flight control platform, thus avoiding the need to add additional processing components. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed design, a triangular phase shift detector prototype has been implemented using commercial devices. Calibration and measurements at 2.46 GHz show a dynamic range of 30 dB and a nonambiguous detection range of ±80° in the worst cases. Those specs let us track the drone during the landing maneuver in an inverted cone formed by a surface with a ±4.19 m radius at 10 m high and the landing point.