Mini-radar system for flying platforms

Surveillance of maritime areas attracts huge interest, because of the different activities that impact the security, safety, economy, or environment in sea domain. These activities require both the identification of areas of interest and the deployment of suitable assets. The types of assets to be deployed depend on different aspects such as their endurance, coverage and cost. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) together with the Department of Aeronautic and Space Engineering at the Politecnico di Torino, have developed two complementary low-cost radar systems on board of an aerostat and of a drone. A Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar has been identified as the technical solution, whereas an integrated IMU/GPS platform has been used as navigation engine. The synchronization between units is fundamental, therefore various solutions have been investigated. The selected approach exploits the time-referenced matching between radar and navigation datasets. To evaluate the performance of the assembled system, several tests have been carried out in pre-operational conditions with the radar performing several azimuthal scans with fixed elevation angle. From the results, no drift nor bias in the attitude parameters have been observed. Moreover the adopted integration strategy allows reconstructing the polar radar picture, exploiting the synergy between the radar and the navigation units. The obtained radar pictures are consistent from scan to scan and correctly characterize the actual scenario.