Efficient Protocol to Use FMCW Radar and CNN to Distinguish Micro-Doppler Signatures of Multiple Drones and Birds

Abstract

Classification of multiple drones and birds by comparing micro-Doppler (MD) signatures is a very difficult task because the MD signatures of multiple birds can contaminate the MD signature of drones, and because a single drone can yield a very similar MD signature to that of multiple drones. In this paper, assuming a real observation scenario, we propose three protocols and analyze their accuracy in classification of multiple drones and birds by using the frequency modulated continuous wave radar and a convolutional neural network classifier. In simulations using models of rotating blades and of flapping wings, the method that uses training data that include combinations of drone and bird achieved an accuracy ~100% for the majority vote classification; this result demonstrates that ours is the most appropriate method to distinguish multiple drones from birds.

Keywords

• Aerial drones
• rotating blade model
• micro-Doppler
• CNN
• FMCW radar