Unmanned aerial vehicle passive detection for Internet of Space Things

Abstract Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) passive detection is an essential part of intelligent surveillance in the Internet of Space Things (IoST). The satellite has the potential to play a vital role in many applications of IoST. This paper proposes a novel UAV passive detection using multiple satellites. Specifically, we consider target detection in the ground dual receiver system, which is divided into reference channel and monitoring channel. The reference channel receives the direct wave signals from multiple external emitters, and the monitoring channel receives the echo signals reflected by the UAV. We propose a multiple satellite joint target detection method based on a generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). This detection algorithm is robust to the reference channel noise. According to the known or unknown noise variance and interference targets, the conditions are divided into three types, where we use GLRT to design the detectors under different conditions. Extensive simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the algorithm under various parameter settings.