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IEEE 802.11ad-Aided 5-D Sensing with a UAV Swarm in Urban Environment

Akanksha Sneh, Shobha Sundar Ram, Kumar Vijay Mishra

TL;DR

The paper confronts the challenge of tracking ground users in urban settings with UAV swarms by proposing an integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) framework built around IEEE 802.11ad at mmWave. A circular UAV array emits a Golay-sequence radar waveform embedded in the 802.11ad PHY frame and processes the received signals with matched filtering, CLEAN, and 2D MUSIC to realize 5-D target sensing—range, Doppler velocity, azimuth, elevation, and polarization. Numerical experiments at $f_o=60$ GHz with $BW=1.76$ GHz validate the approach on an 8-UAV deployment, demonstrating accurate multi-target localization and polarization-enhanced detection, with clutter mitigation via CLEAN and robust parameter estimation via MUSIC. The work demonstrates the practicality of ISAC UAV swarms for simultaneous high-rate connectivity and high-resolution sensing in urban environments and outlines directions for extending the framework to more complex targets and for optimizing swarm coordination and its effects on communication performance.

Abstract

Aerial base stations mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) support next-generation wireless networks in challenging environments such as urban areas, disaster zones, and remote locations. Further, UAV swarms overcome the challenges of limited battery life and other operational constraints of a single UAV. However, tracking mobile users on the ground by each UAV and the corresponding synchronization between the UAVs is a significant issue that must be addressed before this framework can be deployed in reality. Incorporating additional sensing capabilities to facilitate this additional requirement would introduce significant overhead in terms of hardware, cost, and power to each UAV. Instead, we propose an integrated sensing and communications-enabled swarm UAV system, based on the millimeter-wave IEEE 802.11ad protocol. Further, we show that our proposed system is capable of five-dimensional (5-D) ground target sensing (range, Doppler velocity, azimuth, elevation, and polarization) in an urban environment. Numerical experiments using realistic models demonstrate and validate the performance of 5-D sensing using our proposed 802-11ad-aided UAV system.

IEEE 802.11ad-Aided 5-D Sensing with a UAV Swarm in Urban Environment

TL;DR

The paper confronts the challenge of tracking ground users in urban settings with UAV swarms by proposing an integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) framework built around IEEE 802.11ad at mmWave. A circular UAV array emits a Golay-sequence radar waveform embedded in the 802.11ad PHY frame and processes the received signals with matched filtering, CLEAN, and 2D MUSIC to realize 5-D target sensing—range, Doppler velocity, azimuth, elevation, and polarization. Numerical experiments at GHz with GHz validate the approach on an 8-UAV deployment, demonstrating accurate multi-target localization and polarization-enhanced detection, with clutter mitigation via CLEAN and robust parameter estimation via MUSIC. The work demonstrates the practicality of ISAC UAV swarms for simultaneous high-rate connectivity and high-resolution sensing in urban environments and outlines directions for extending the framework to more complex targets and for optimizing swarm coordination and its effects on communication performance.

Abstract

Aerial base stations mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) support next-generation wireless networks in challenging environments such as urban areas, disaster zones, and remote locations. Further, UAV swarms overcome the challenges of limited battery life and other operational constraints of a single UAV. However, tracking mobile users on the ground by each UAV and the corresponding synchronization between the UAVs is a significant issue that must be addressed before this framework can be deployed in reality. Incorporating additional sensing capabilities to facilitate this additional requirement would introduce significant overhead in terms of hardware, cost, and power to each UAV. Instead, we propose an integrated sensing and communications-enabled swarm UAV system, based on the millimeter-wave IEEE 802.11ad protocol. Further, we show that our proposed system is capable of five-dimensional (5-D) ground target sensing (range, Doppler velocity, azimuth, elevation, and polarization) in an urban environment. Numerical experiments using realistic models demonstrate and validate the performance of 5-D sensing using our proposed 802-11ad-aided UAV system.
Paper Structure (5 sections, 7 equations, 4 figures, 1 table, 2 algorithms)

This paper contains 5 sections, 7 equations, 4 figures, 1 table, 2 algorithms.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Signal Model
  3. 5-D Sensing
  4. Performance Analysis
  5. Summary

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: IEEE 802.11ad PHY frame with radar waveform embedded in it.
  • Figure 2: System model showing a swarm of UAVs sending a directional beam to the mobile target.
  • Figure 3: Block diagram of 5-D sensing: Input radar data cube for each polarization is first processed to obtain range-Doppler ambiguity plots. Multiple targets are detected using CLEAN. Corresponding azimuth and elevation angles of each target are estimated through 2D MUSIC.
  • Figure 4: 2D range-Doppler ambiguity map (a,e) without CLEAN, (b,f) after first CLEAN iteration, and (c,g) after second CLEAN iteration for horizontal and vertical polarization, respectively. 2D azimuth-elevation map for (d) horizontal and (h) vertical polarization.