Using Drone Swarms as a Countermeasure of Radar Detection

Abstract

The deployment of a drone swarm from carrier aircraft can support critical operations in which target aircraft should be protected by ground-based radar detection. To be successful as a countermeasure, the drones that are involved in the swarm must be equipped with proper payload systems and the geometry among the swarm units must be well designed. This paper describes the development of a scaled drone swarm geometry that can electromagnetically obscure a target from radar detection. Different drone swarm configurations were analyzed to select a feasible solution to develop ground and in-flight tests. During the tests, a compact software radar was used to detect a target drone. Several ground tests were executed to characterize the radar echo response of the target drone installed on a wooden tripod. Different geometries of corner reflectors were tested on tripods to select the swarm geometry that better obscured the target drone. Flight tests were executed involving decoy drones equipped with a corner reflector and a target drone to validate the proposed drone swarm geometry. The presented design of a drone swarm geometry allowed us to characterize the scaled distances among the swarm units and between the swarm and the target that must be protected against a ground-based radar detection.