Sensing, Detection and Localization for Low Altitude UAV: A RF-Based Framework via Multiple BSs Collaboration

Abstract

The rapid growth of the low-altitude economy has resulted in a significant increase in the number of Low, slow, and small (LLS) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), raising critical challenges for secure airspace management and reliable trajectory planning. To address this, this paper proposes a cooperative radio-frequency (RF) detection and localization framework that leverages existing cellular base stations. The proposed approach features a robust scheme for LSS target identification, integrating a cell averaging-constant false alarm rate (CA-CFAR) detector with a micro-Doppler signature (MDS) based recognition method. Multi-station measurements are fused through a grid-based probabilistic algorithm combined with clustering techniques, effectively mitigating ghost targets and improving localization accuracy in multi-UAV scenarios. Furthermore, the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) is derived as a performance benchmark and reinforcement learning (RL)-based optimization is employed to balance localization accuracy against station resource usage. Simulations demonstrate that increasing from one to multiple BSs reduces the positioning error to near the CRLB, while practical experiments further verify the framework's effectiveness. Furthermore, our RL-based optimization can find solutions that maintain high accuracy while minimizing resource usage, highlighting its potential as a scalable solution for ensuring airspace safety in the emerging low-altitude economy.