Multipath-dominant, pulsed doppler analysis of rotating blades

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robust angular fingerprinting algorithm using doppler multipath signals to detect rotation direction changes of a target with a stationary sonar, demonstrated via a smartphone-based system.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, topologically robust angular fingerprinting method leveraging doppler multipath signals for rotation detection in stationary sonar systems.

Findings

Successfully detects rotation direction changes using the proposed method.

Achieves high-resolution inverse synthetic aperture imaging.

Demonstrates system performance on a smartphone platform.

Abstract

We present a novel angular fingerprinting algorithm for detecting changes in the direction of rotation of a target with a monostatic, stationary sonar platform. Unlike other approaches, we assume that the target's centroid is stationary, and exploit doppler multipath signals to resolve the otherwise unavoidable ambiguities that arise. Since the algorithm is based on an underlying differential topological theory, it is highly robust to distortions in the collected data. We demonstrate performance of this algorithm experimentally, by exhibiting a pulsed doppler sonar collection system that runs on a smartphone. The performance of this system is sufficiently good to both detect changes in target rotation direction using angular fingerprints, and also to form high-resolution inverse synthetic aperature images of the target.