A compact millimeter wave radar sensor for unmanned air vehicles

Abstract

This paper presents a compact Millimeter Wave (MMW) radar unit that has been developed to be used as a Range, Bearing and Elevation (RBE) sensor on the Brumby Mk III Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV). The Brumby MkIII is the flight platform used in the Autonomous Navigation and Sensing Experimental Research (ANSER) project which is focused on the development and demonstration of the Decentralised Data Fusion (DDF) and Simultaneous Localisation and Map Building (SLAM) algorithms on multiple UAVs. In the airborne DDF and SLAM demonstrations with UAVs, it is essential to have a terrain sensor on board for the RBE measurements of the ground targets. The focus of this paper is the hardware and software components of the MMW radar as an RBE sensor in the context of the ANSER project. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.