Hunting Drones with Other Drones: Tracking a Moving Radio Target

Abstract

Unauthorized drone flights near aircraft, airports, and emergency operations compromise the safety of passengers and bystanders. A detection system that can quickly find and track drones could help mitigate the risk of unauthorized drone flights. In this work, we show how a consumer drone outfitted with antennas and commodity radios can autonomously localize another drone by its telemetry radio emissions. We show how a non-myopic planner improves tracking performance over traditionally used greedy, one-step planners. Improved tracking is validated with simulations and the system is demonstrated with real drones in flight tests.