Bistatic UAV-Based Repeater SAR for 3D Object Localization

Abstract:
A unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based radar system is augmented by a low-complexity repeater on a second UAV that allows to locate objects in 3D space. The repeater provides complementary height information, that cannot be gathered from the monostatic radar signal alone, since linear synthetic aperture radar (SAR) fails to resolve all spatial dimensions. The high-resolution SAR image determined by the radar system can then be evaluated at the correct height, resulting in a precise object localization. Based on simulation and measurement, it is shown that the position of objects can be determined with an accuracy of a few centimeters.