Radar-based altitude over ground estimation of UAVs

Schartel, Markus; Burr, Ralf; Schoeder, Pirmin; Rossi, Gilberto; Hügler, Philipp; Mayer, Winfried; Waldschmidt, Christian

doi:10.23919/gemic.2018.8335039

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 4 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…It is shown that not only the altitude AGL but also different parts of vegetation and the surface of the terrain is detectable. A 26 GHz pulse correlation radar presented in [5] with a range resolution of 15 cm shows similar results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

122 GHz Monostatic Radar Altimeter for Automated UAV Landing

Hügler¹,

Driemeyer²,

Chaloun³

et al. 2018

2018 International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications (ICEAA)

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Landing maneuvers are critical tasks for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and need very precise information on the altitude above ground level (AGL). Radar is a suitable technology for this application, because it can not only sense the altitude AGL but also the rate of descent. In addition, obstacles or unsuitable terrain for landing can be detected. With the 122 GHz monostatic radar sensor presented in this paper, high bandwidth can be achieved in order to obtain range resolution in the single digit cm-range. Measurements are performed for different bandwidths to verify the concept.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

122 GHz Monostatic Radar Altimeter for Automated UAV Landing

Hügler¹,

Driemeyer²,

Chaloun³

et al. 2018

2018 International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications (ICEAA)

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“…Thus, we leave it for future work to address the problem of accurately estimating the altitude of a UAV. Two approaches that can be considered include (a) filtering the barometer sensor data using, for example, a Kalman filter (Liu et al, ), and (b) the use of a LiDAR sensor or a radar‐based sensor for more accurate height above ground estimations (Schartel et al, ). Alternatively, employing the existing implementation on all topographical conditions requires a UAV capability to maintain a fixed relative altitude above ground.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

TrackerBots: Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle for real‐time localization and tracking of multiple radio‐tagged animals

Nguyen

Chesser

Koh

et al. 2019

Journal of Field Robotics

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Autonomous aerial robots provide new possibilities to study the habitats and behaviors of endangered species through the efficient gathering of location information at temporal and spatial granularities not possible with traditional manual survey methods. We present a novel autonomous aerial vehicle system-TrackerBotsto track and localize multiple radio-tagged animals. The simplicity of measuring the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values of very high frequency (VHF) radiocollars commonly used in the field is exploited to realize a low-cost and lightweight tracking platform suitable for integration with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Due to uncertainty and the nonlinearity of the system based on RSSI measurements, our tracking and planning approaches integrate a particle filter for tracking and localizing and a partially observable Markov decision process for dynamic path planning. This approach allows autonomous navigation of a UAV in a direction of maximum information gain to locate multiple mobile animals and reduce exploration time and, consequently, conserve on-board battery power. We also employ the concept of search termination criteria to maximize the number of located animals within power constraints of the aerial system. We validated our real-time and online approach through both extensive simulations and field experiments with five VHF radio-tags on a grassland plain.

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“…For this kind of application the distance between the UAV and the plants must be kept constant to assure uniform spraying. This can be achieved with a radar as shown in [8].…”

Section: Application Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With In order to reduce hardware complexity and therefore achieve lower costs, a pulse correlation radar can be used for altitude AGL estimation. In [8] a 26 GHz radar in conjunction with a particle filter to track the altitude AGL with an update rate of up to 40 Hz is compared with a low cost LiDAR and an RTK GNSS. As can be seen in for industrial applications [23][24][25], making the realization of small form factor and lightweight radar sensors feasible for UAV applications.…”

Section: Uavs and Radar: Remote Sensing And Safety Improvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Radar Taking Off: New Capabilities for UAVs

et al. 2018

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Modern consumer and industrial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are easy to use flying sensor platforms. They offer stable flight, good maneuverability, hovering, and even waypoint flights in autopilot mode. For stabilization and localization sensors such as internal measurement units (IMUs) including gyroscope and accelerometer, barometric sensor, and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) are used. To sense the direct environment of the UAV, for instance for collision avoidance or fully automated flights, additional sensors are needed. State-of-the-art combinations of infrared sensors, ultrasonic sensors as well as vision based sensors (monocular and/or stereo vision) capture the close vicinity. Using radar sensors is advantageous, as they are able to directly sense range and velocity and are not prone to lighting conditions and contrast. With the help of a multi-channel radar, the angular information can also be extracted. UAVs can lift a considerable payload with respect to their size. All these characteristics combined with radar sensors make them a promising tool for a large variety of applications.

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Radar-based altitude over ground estimation of UAVs

Cited by 11 publications

References 4 publications

122 GHz Monostatic Radar Altimeter for Automated UAV Landing

122 GHz Monostatic Radar Altimeter for Automated UAV Landing

TrackerBots: Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle for real‐time localization and tracking of multiple radio‐tagged animals

Radar Taking Off: New Capabilities for UAVs

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