TECHNIQUE OF DETECTION FIELD ESTIMATING FOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES BY A GROUND OBSERVER

Abstract

The widespread use of small-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) makes it urgent to control their use in the airspace over strategic infrastructure facilities. The design features of UAVs provide them with low visibility in all existing observation ranges: radar, visual, thermal, and acoustic. In this regard, for the reliable detection of such aircraft, it is necessary to use complex systems that conduct simultaneous observations in all available ranges. To optimize the location of such systems, the problem arises of determining the fields of reliable detection of UAVs for each of the means included in the system. To solve this problem for the means of visual and thermal detection based on the previously developed technique for determining the indications of the detection range based on the determination of the visually visible area of the UAV, calculated from the existing three-dimensional model of the vehicle, a new method is proposed for analyzing the characteristics of the UAV visibility for the ground observer. The application of the proposed technique is demonstrated by the example of two UAV models: ECO – with an internal combustion engine, and ELECTRA – with an electric motor. The concept of the indicatrix of the detection field is introduced, as an indicatrix of the maximum detection range, transferred from the UAV coordinate system to the observer's coordinate system by simple geometric transformations. Based on the indications of the detection field, it is possible to carry out both a direct comparative analysis of the visual visibility of UAVs and to obtain additional information from them, useful for making recommendations on the parameters of the UAV flight, in particular, the flight altitude and the direction of approach to the location of a potential observer. If there is an indicatrix of the detection field for the analyzed UAV, the calculation of the detection zone boundary can be performed automatically for any given height. This allows you to visualize information about the limits within which the UAV detection range can change depending on the direction and altitude of its flight.

Keywords

• беспилотный летательный аппарат
• визуальная заметность
• индикатриса дальности обнаружения
• поле обнаружения
• наземное визуальное наблюдение