Passive Detection of Low-Altitude Signal Sources Using an Improved Cross- Correlation Algorithm

Date

2018

Authors

Cao, Conghui
Yang, Hua
Zhang, Hao
Wang, Yan
Gulliver, Thomas Aaron

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Applied Sciences

Abstract

The passive detection of low-altitude signal sources is studied using an improved cross-correlation method in the time–frequency domain. A matching template is designed for signal cross-correlation, and a cross-correlation threshold is used to determine whether a signal source is present or not. An improved cross-correlation method is also proposed to estimate the direction of arrival and communication frequency of a signal source. Furthermore, the distance and signal-to-noise ratio are estimated using an energy detector. Outdoor data from a bridge in the Jimo District, Qingdao, and indoor data from a research laboratory are used for performance evaluation. The results obtained show that the proposed method can provide better passive detection of low-altitude signal sources compared to several well-known algorithms in the literature. In addition, this method is more suitable for long-distance detection.

Description

Keywords

signal detection, low-altitude signal source, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), cross-correlation, time–frequency analysis

Citation

Cao, C., Yang, H., Zhang, H., Wang, Y. & Gulliver, T.A. (2018). Passive Detection of Low-Altitude Signal Sources Using an Improved Cross-Correlation Algorithm. Applied Sciences, 8(12), 2348. https://doi.org/10.3390/app8122348