Proof of concept of micro-UAV-based radar imaging

The potential of micro-UAV-based radar imaging is far from being exploited, though radar sensors having budgets compatible with micro-UAV are increasingly available. As a contribution to this topic, this paper discusses the relation between UAV dynamics and navigation, and radar processing, and presents a proof-of-concept ground imaging experiment in which a commercial hexacopter has been equipped with an ultralight radar. Flight results are presented in terms of both raw data and images obtained by means of an ad-hoc data processing approach. Results suggest that, in spite of its accuracy limitations, standalone GNSS information can be effectively integrated within radar processing algorithms, thus improving ground target detection and localization performance.