Assessment of EO/IR Technologies for Detection of Small UAVs in an Urban Environment

​SET-260/RTG: SET-260 Assessment of EO/IR Technologies for Detection of Small UAVs in an Urban Environment

M. CHATEAUNEUF (DRDC-CAN), A. BORGHGRAEF (RMA-BEL), F. CHRISTNACHER (ISL-FRA), J.-C. PRIOUL (DGA-FRA), J.-A. RODRIGUEZ (GRADIAT-ESP), K. STEWART (AFRL-USA), K. BENOIST (TNO-NLD), L. HESPEL (ONERA-FRA), M HEBEL (IOSB-DEU), S. OZSARAC (ASELSAN-TUR), S. HANSEN (DALO-DNK), 

Motivation

Over the past years, the accessibility and affordability has generated an increase in small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The autonomous aspect of the UAVs and their payloads create ease for hostile activities; drones are reported to frequently cross NATO country borders to spy on military installations and operations. Furthermore, non-State organizations such as ISIS successfully performed attacks with a drone rigged with explosives and are inevitably working on using drones as remotely controlled chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons in populated areas. The difficulty to detect small UAVs increases in an urban environment due to complex and varying background clutter such as building structures, high density population and traffic, which limits active sensing operations for safety concerns and regulations. The operational community requires enhanced situational awareness of UAV activities (ISR, target acquisition, explosive delivery, etc) in an urban environment in order to defend themselves against these emerging threats.

The SET-260 research technical group (RTG) is addressing an area of the UAV detection challenge by collecting and building a database of UAVs and urban background signatures in the electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) bands.

​​
Figure 1. Example of clutter urban environment in the visible band. A DJI Mavik can be seen in the middle of the image, which can be difficult to distinguish from the birds. ​

Field Trial

SET-260 held a joint UAV urban field trial in in June 2019 in France. The trial took place at the Centre d'entrainement aux actions en zone urbaine (CENZUB), a facility built for training French armed forces in urban warfare skills. Nine nations participated for a total of thirteen teams, collecting UAV and background EO-IR and acoustic signatures. More than eight different micro- and mini- UAVs types flew in varying scenarios (including a night event) in the city center of the training facility as well as in the industrial zone. 

Included in the trial program was a visit from the NATO SET-245 RTG. SET-245 is researching the same UAV detection challenge, but with radars. Both RTGs are collaborating to share expertise and knowledge and to organise a joint (EO/IR and RF) trial in the near future. That synergy will help converging toward global UAV detection solutions.

The shared data collected during the June trial is already being used to develop detection and tracking algorithms as well as support deep learning for threat identification and false alarm mitigation systems.

Published by SET