Industrial PhD Studentship in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle deployed Ground-Penetrating Radar for Buried Object Detection

无人机工业博士生部署探地雷达进行掩埋物体检测

• 批准号: 2507722
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2507722
• 关键词: Industrial; PhD; Studentship; Unmanned; Aerial

The research is aimed at advancing the state-of-the-art in the deployment of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) from unmanned aerial vehicles. There is a growing commercial interest in airborne systems that are capable of detecting buried targets for a range of applications including defence, humanitarian geotechnical, and archaeological applications. The project is in partnership with Dstl and supported by an iCASE scholarship.Weight and energy are at a premium for unmanned aerial vehicle applications, and therefore this PhD research project will investigate the specific technological challenges of developing lightweight antennas and their associated coupling components. Radar electronic hardware suitable for a UAV deployed GPR will also be a potential area of research. An approach for obtaining information over an area of ground is to use synthetic aperture radar techniques and this is a further potential subject area for the project to advance. . Antenna arrays variants will be developed for each, as these have different scientific challenges. For the case of ground vehicles, the radar reflection from the ground presents a serious confounding signal, especially as the ground coupling is so variable. In the case of airborne vehicles, the antennas must be designed to minimise signal attenuation / maximise directivity and ground loading can largely be ignored. Although these are different considerations, there are complementary aspects that make both deployment scenarios suitable for investigation in one project, for example, the design of light-weight antennas and electronic system components.The project will focus on producing GPR antennas suitable for future use on unmanned aerial vehicles. The main stages of this project are:1. Investigate existing and new designs of lightweight antennas that are suitable for GPR when deployed in proximal mode (antennas either touching the ground or slightly offset above the ground but still close enough to have a ground-coupling effect) and a separate design for stand-off mode (air-launched). 2. Design new antennas via modelling and laboratory tests, taking account of the requirement specification, especially aspects of size, weight and aerodynamics. The designed antennas need to be suitable for deployment in arrays to allow for sufficient ground coverage. The proximal and stand-off modes may require very different array densities and should be carefully modelled. The array design could involve new concepts such as thin-film/conformal/flexible/optically transparent ultra-wide-band antennas, for instance using graphene or more conventional metal films (ITO / Ti). Additional options investigating fractal and electronic band gap methods of reducing antenna size while retaining adequate performance will be considered.3. Fabricate the highest performing modelled proximal and stand-off array designs.4. Demonstration of a functioning radar system, with the two antenna array variants as separate plug-ins. The UoM has recently invested in a 16 channel VNA that can be used for these tests. Deployment on to the vehicles should then be possible by utilising recent developments in commercial radar ICs - to achieve good signal-to-noise ratios while under the constraints of small size, light weight and low power. It is intended that the student will collaborate with the researcher awarded the related studentship on Signal Processing, and their combined effort would build an overall stronger output, however this proposal would produce very worthwhile results in itself.Note: Integration of the antenna arrays onto unmanned vehicles is outside the scope of the project. However, the antenna arrays will be designed to meet realistic weight, size, power requirements; with the algorithms designed to be suitable for mobile data processing.

该研究旨在推进无人机地面穿透雷达（GPR）部署的最新技术。有越来越多的商业利益，在机载系统，能够检测埋在一系列应用，包括国防，人道主义岩土工程，考古应用的目标。该项目与Dstl合作，并得到iCASE奖学金的支持。重量和能量对于无人机应用来说是非常重要的，因此这个博士研究项目将研究开发轻型天线及其相关耦合组件的具体技术挑战。雷达电子硬件适合无人机部署探地雷达也将是一个潜在的研究领域。获取地面区域信息的一种方法是使用合成孔径雷达技术，这是该项目有待推进的另一个潜在主题领域。.将为每种天线阵列开发变体，因为这些变体具有不同的科学挑战。对于地面车辆的情况，来自地面的雷达反射呈现出严重的混杂信号，特别是当地面耦合如此可变时。在空中交通工具的情况下，天线必须设计成最小化信号衰减/最大化方向性，并且地面负载可以在很大程度上被忽略。虽然这些是不同的考虑因素，但也有互补的方面，使这两种部署方案适合在一个项目中进行研究，例如，轻型天线和电子系统组件的设计。该项目将重点生产适合未来在无人机上使用的探地雷达天线。该项目的主要阶段是：1。调查适用于探地雷达近距离模式（天线接触地面或略微偏离地面，但仍足够接近地面耦合效应）和远距离模式（空中发射）的单独设计的现有和新的轻型天线设计。2.通过建模和实验室测试设计新的天线，考虑到需求规格，特别是尺寸，重量和空气动力学方面。所设计的天线需要适合于以阵列形式部署，以允许足够的地面覆盖。近端和支座模式可能需要非常不同的阵列密度，应仔细建模。阵列设计可能涉及新的概念，例如薄膜/共形/柔性/光学透明超宽带天线，例如使用石墨烯或更传统的金属膜（ITO / Ti）。研究分形和电子带隙方法的其他选择，以减少天线尺寸，同时保持足够的性能将被考虑。制造性能最高的建模近端和支座阵列设计。4.演示一个功能正常的雷达系统，两个天线阵列变体作为单独的插件。UoM最近投资了一个16通道VNA，可用于这些测试。然后，通过利用商业雷达IC的最新发展，可以将其部署到车辆上-在小尺寸，轻重量和低功耗的限制下实现良好的信噪比。学生将与获得信号处理相关研究生奖学金的研究人员合作，他们的共同努力将建立一个整体更强大的输出，但这个建议本身将产生非常有价值的结果。注：将天线阵列集成到无人驾驶车辆上不在项目范围之内。然而，天线阵列将被设计为满足实际的重量、尺寸、功率要求;算法被设计为适合于移动的数据处理。