Assessment of a micro-UAV system for microwave tomography radar imaging

Micro-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are flexible observation platforms suitable to cover inaccessible areas on demand. Accordingly, huge attention is deserved towards development of miniaturized sensing technologies compliant with UAV payload constrains and capable of providing high-resolution ima...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing of environment 2018-06, Vol.212, p.90-102
Main Authors: Ludeno, Giovanni, Catapano, Ilaria, Renga, Alfredo, Vetrella, Amedeo Rodi, Fasano, Giancarmine, Soldovieri, Francesco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Altitude
Data processing
Feasibility studies
Filtration
Flight
Flight altitude
Image resolution
Imaging
Inverse scattering
Localization
Microwave tomography
Polls & surveys
Radar
Radar imaging
Radar survey
Singular value decomposition
Tomography
UAV system
Ultrasonic imaging
Unmanned aerial vehicles
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Summary:Micro-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are flexible observation platforms suitable to cover inaccessible areas on demand. Accordingly, huge attention is deserved towards development of miniaturized sensing technologies compliant with UAV payload constrains and capable of providing high-resolution images of the region under test. As a contribution to this topic, the paper presents a prototype UAV system for radar imaging made by a commercial micro-UAV equipped with a miniaturized low power radar, whose imaging capabilities are enhanced by a properly designed data processing strategy. Such a strategy involves a processing step performed in time domain, which accounts for a procedure devoted to compensate flight altitude variation and a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) based noise filtering approach. After, the focused images of the surveyed scenario are obtained by using a microwave tomographic approach, which integrates data about UAV position and faces the imaging as a linear inverse scattering problem. A feasibility experiment, carried out to test the operational mode of the assembled system, is presented. The obtained results corroborate that the integration of GPS and flight altitude information into the microwave tomography approach allows valuable radar imaging capabilities in terms of target localization accuracy. •Micro-UAV prototype system for radar imaging.•Microwave tomography for target detection and localization via radar on drone.•Experimental assessment of the working capabilities of the assembled prototype.
ISSN:0034-4257
1879-0704
DOI:10.1016/j.rse.2018.04.040