Compact millimeter wave FMCW InSAR for UAS indoor navigation

This paper presents a novel millimeter wave radar sensor for UAS applications, in particular autonomous navigation in indoor GPS-denied environment. The sensor is aimed at both navigation with obstacle detection and highresolution 3D mapping with moving target detection. Poor visibility due to dust, fog, smoke or flames often causes failure of state-of-the-art sensors for UAS, which are very sensitive to environmental conditions. On the contrary, a sensor based on the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) principle has been identified as potential candidate to satisfy stringent requirements set by indoor autonomous operations. Main features of the architectural solution based on frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) scheme and millimeter-wave technology are discussed. New procedures for system design are outlined and a set of nominal values for the system are provided. Finally, a software simulator, developed in order both to demonstrate that high-resolution, high-quality observation of an assigned control volume can be achieved and to assess mapping capabilities, is presented.