Leveraging Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for Drone-based Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI)

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Leveraging Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for Drone-based Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI): Performance Metrics and Applications

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a radar technique that involves moving a radar antenna along a trajectory to create detailed images of a target area. SAR has been widely used for ground moving target indication (GMTI) by employing multiple SAR antennas to estimate not only the location of the target but also its along-track and across-track velocity components. While SAR has shown great success on space-borne and air-borne platforms, its application on lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is still under exploration. The flexibility and low cost of these small flying platforms make them highly attractive for GMTI applications. This research project aims to investigate the fundamentals of SAR-based GMTI techniques and to assess the advantages and challenges of their use on lightweight UAVs. Additionally, the project focuses on deriving performance metrics for target movement estimation.

Guidelines for the project:

  • Conduct comprehensive review of SAR-based GMTI fundamentals and applications.
  • Compare the different SAR-based GMTI techniques.
  • Explore opportunities and challenges related to the use of SAR-GMTI onboard drones.
  • Propose potential performance metrics for drone-based GMTI applications.

Prerequisites:

  • Interest in sensing and communications.
  • Basic knowledge of radar signal processing.
  • Experience in programming languages (Python and/or Matlab).

Are you interested? Get in touch with Amine Lahmeri and Ata Khalili.