Research on the Improvement of the Signal Time Delay Estimation Method of Acoustic Positioning for Anti-Low Altitude UAVs

Sensors (Basel). 2025 Apr 25;25(9):2735. doi: 10.3390/s25092735.

ABSTRACT

With the popularity of low-altitude small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), UAVs are often used to take candid photos or even carry out malicious attacks. Acoustic detection can be used to locate UAVs in order to prevent malicious attacks by UAVs. Aiming at the problem of a large error in the time delay estimation algorithm under a low SNR, a time delay estimation algorithm based on an improved weighted function combined with a generalized cubic cross-correlation is introduced. By analyzing and comparing the performance of generalized cross-correlation time delay estimation of different traditional weighting functions, an improved weighting function that combines improved smooth coherent transform (SCOT) and phase transform (PHAT) is proposed. Compared with the traditional generalized cross-correlation weighted function, the improved weighted function has a sharper and higher peak value, and the time delay estimation error is smaller at a low SNR. Secondly, by combining the improved weight function with the generalized cubic cross-correlation, the main peak value is further increased and sharpened, and the time delay estimation performance is better than that when combined with the generalized cubic cross-correlation and the generalized quadratic correlation. Experimental results show that in complex outdoor scenes, the positioning error of the unimproved GCC PHAT method is 45.22 cm, and the positioning error of the improved weighted function generalized cubic cross-correlation algorithm is no more than 22.1 cm. Compared with the unimproved GCC PHAT method, the performance is improved by 35.55%. It is proven that this method is helpful for improving the positioning ability of low-flying UAVs and can provide help for anti-terrorism security against malicious attacks by UAVs.

PMID:40363173 | DOI:10.3390/s25092735