With the widespread use of multirotor UAS/drones, the skies are going to get crowded. Under this scenario, it is not inconceivable to anticipate potential issues with enforcing flight rules and regulations on these drones. This might come about as a result of some failures on the drones themselves (loss of communication, sensor or actuator failures) or in some cases, deliberatively uncooperative drones.
So implement effective Counter UAS (C-UAS) measures, it is important to fully characterize the uncooperative drone, particularly its capabilities; the first step in this process is the identification of the geometry of the drone. In this project we are in the preliminary stages to characterize the geometry of a drone, using feeds from fixed video cameras. Preliminary results indicate that it is feasible to identify the general geometry of the drone – such as if it is a quadcopter or otherwise.
Publications:
Gururajan, S., Dreyer, M., “Characterization of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) geometry using feeds from fixed video cameras,” Proc. SPIE 11398, Geospatial Informatics X, 1139806 (20 May 2020); doi: 10.1117/12.2563782.
Dreyer, M.S., Gururajan, S., Raj, S., Glowacki, J., “Detecting, Tracking, and Localizing a Moving Quadcopter Using Two External Cameras,” 2018 Flight Testing Conference, AIAA AVIATION Forum, (AIAA 2018-4281). https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2018-4281