Navigation and communication are two of the major challenges when flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), in particular when Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are unavailable. The phased array radio system used in this paper aims to solve both communication and navigation with one system. To enable high efficiency data transfer, the radio system uses electronic beamforming to direct the energy from the ground radio towards the UAV, but to be able to do this, the ground radio needs to know the bearing and elevation angles towards the UAV. By measuring the round-trip time to compute the range and observing the direction of the incoming signal to compute the bearing and elevation angles, the phased array radio system is able to find the position of the UAV, relative to the ground radio, in all three dimensions. The phased array system is shown to provide absolute measurements for UAV navigation in radio line of sight, which can be used as a redundant system to GNSS measurements. By merging the radio measurements with barometer altitude data, a mean accuracy of approximately 24 m with a standard deviation of approximately 17 m compared to the real time kinematic (RTK) satellite navigation solution is achieved on a UAV flight at a distance of approximately 5 km.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Navigation of UAV using phased array radio


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2017-10-01


    Size :

    2417306 byte




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Phased Array Radio Navigation System on UAVs: In-flight Calibration

    Okuhara, Mika / Bryne, Torleiv Håland / Gryte, Kristoffer et al. | BASE | 2022

    Free access

    Phased Array Radio Navigation: UAV Field Tests During GNSS Jamming

    Gryte, Kristoffer / Bryne, Torleiv H. / Johansen, Tor A. | IEEE | 2024


    Phased array radio system aided inertial navigation for unmanned aerial vehicles

    Albrektsen, Sigurd M. / Bryne, Torleiv H. / Johansen, Tor A. | IEEE | 2018


    Phased Array Radio Navigation System on UAVs: GNSS-based Calibration in the Field

    Okuhara, Mika / Bryne, Torleiv Haland / Gryte, Kristoffer et al. | IEEE | 2021