Correlation direction finder for small aircraft

Introduction. Small aircraft (SA), or drones, are used in various areas of society, for example, to inspect agriculture and forestry, monitor traffic, and transport small loads. SA are increasingly appearing near airports, power stations, warehouses, and private estates, and may pose a danger to both public and private interests. Detection of SA becomes an urgent problem. The development of SA direction finding devices with given detection characteristics and the predicted detection distance is of practical interest. Theoretical results. For the detection of SA is proposed to use the method of correlation direction finding. Acoustic radiation of a drone is considered as a localized broadband noise process. Interference - acoustic noise in the area of application of the detection means is considered as an isotropic normal process. A comparison of detection characteristics (DC) for the correlation direction finder (CDF) and quadratic detector (QD) is given. The calculated detection parameters demonstrate the advantage of the CDF in signal detection of 6 dB, which leads to an increase in the detection range of the SA. Conclusions. For the detection of drones using acoustic radiation, a correlation direction finder was used. The algorithm for calculating the characteristics of the detection of the noise signal by a correlation direction finder depending on the receiver settings is given. A theoretical comparison of the characteristics of the CDF and QD is given. The gain of the correlation direction finder is established when detecting weak noise signals of approximately 6 dB, which leads to an increase in the detection range. Experimental studies of the direction finding quadcopter Phantom 3 standard correlation receiver confirmed the theoretical prediction.