Systems and Methods of Radar Surveillance On-Board an Autonomous or Remotely Piloted Aircraft

An example autonomous or remotely piloted aircraft includes a virtual aperture radar system including a plurality of antennas relationally positioned on one or more surfaces of the aircraft such that individual beams from each of the plurality of antennas scan respective volumes around the aircraft and the respective volumes together substantially form an ellipsoidal field of regard around the aircraft, and a computing device having one or more processors configured to execute instructions stored in memory for performing functions of: combining the respective volumes together to form an image representative of the ellipsoidal field of regard around the aircraft, and identifying one or more objects within the image.