Determination of the Direction to the Source of Radio Emission in a Radio Direction Finder with a Five-Element Ring Antenna Array and Total Difference Processing

Abstract

One of the methods for measuring the direction of arrival of an electromagnetic wave from a radio source by an automatic direction finder with a small antenna base and a limited number of channels of the radio receiving path is proposed. The problems that arise during the implementation of this method are listed, and suggestions for their solution are presented. A block diagram has been obtained and a layout of a radio direction finder has been created, in which the processing device is implemented using a two-channel LimeSDR transceiver. The results of the radio direction finder test for detecting and evaluating the direction of an unmanned aerial vehicle are presented.

Keywords

• radio direction finder with a small antenna base
• amplitude modulation of the signal
• unmanned aerial vehicle
• radio source
• annular antenna array
• bearing estimation