Unmanned aerial vehicle micro platform for airborne radar applications

A micro-scale airborne sensor platform based on a microcopter model that is equipped with a time-domain subsampling impulse radar will be presented in this work. A microcopter is an unmanned aerial system that uses all available engines for lift solely and is remote controlled by purely changing the rotational speed of the individual engines. The microcopter is used as an universal carrier platform for remote sensing applications of locations that are otherwise difficult to reach. The developed microcopter is equipped with a impulse radar module for 6.3 GHz and 26 GHz. The received radar echo is evaluated by subsampling the carrier modulated Gaussian pulses. The low frequency envelope of the consecutive samples, that represents a stretched replica of the high frequency radar signal, is digitized and recorded for post processing. This contribution illustrates the implementation of the time-domain radar module onto the experimental microdrone to develop a miniature airborne radar system.