Single‐station radar‐based UAV position estimation in complex urban environments

In the complex electromagnetic environment of cities, detection and positioning of slow and small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have always been a very challenging research topic. Usually, multiple radar observation stations are required to detect and track targets. Moreover, each radar observation station requires strict synchronisation, and the system is complex and costly. In view of this, under the condition of known prior information of urban geography, this study proposes a method to locate UAVs in complex electromagnetic environments, which use multiple virtual mirror synchronous radars constructed by multipaths and created by the complex buildings in urban environments. First, the simulation model is constructed, and the corresponding simulation parameters are given. Then, the algorithm for solving the single‐station radar location is proposed, and the algorithm is verified by the simulation of a ray propagation model. Finally, the proposed algorithm is further verified based on the measured data captured by the radar system in Section 2. The results show that the proposed algorithm based on the single‐station radar is able to locate the UAV in both line‐of‐sight and non‐line‐of‐sight site, and its positioning accuracy is better than 1 m.