Drone Swarm Classification from ISAR Imaging

Abstract

In today's technology, the use of drones has become very popular for they can be easily purchased over the Internet and can be easily developed. With drones that have wide usage areas, swarm structures have become popular. However, this has brought about some problems. The issue of drone detection has emerged in order to prevent the uncontrolled use of drone swarms in the airspace. Drone swarm detection is important to prevent dangerous accidents or criminal acts. In this study, a new classification algorithm is proposed with deep learning using inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) images of drone swarms based on various formation swarm types. ISAR images are created using ANSYS simulation. Additionally, high frequency structural simulator (HFSS) - shooting bouncing ray (SBR+) solver is used for high-speed computation. Radar and simulation parameters to obtain ISAR images are discussed. Especially, down-range and cross-range resolution parameters are taken into account to achieve high resolution. ISAR images are classified using deep learning methods in terms of formation. Formation types include Line, Square, Cross, and Triangle. The convolutional neural network (CNN) model is used to solve classification problems. The model consists of train, validation, and test steps. Classification performance results are presented with high accuracy. The developed method can be used for anti-drone technologies.