CubeDN: Real-time Drone Detection in 3D Space from Dual mmWave Radar Cubes

TL;DR

CubeDN is a real-time 3D drone detection system using dual mmWave radars and deep learning, achieving high accuracy and fast inference, addressing limitations of optical sensors under adverse conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dual radar setup and deep learning pipeline for accurate 3D drone detection and localization, overcoming elevation resolution challenges.

Findings

Achieves 95% average precision and 85% average recall.

Provides decimeter-level tracking accuracy at close range.

Operates at 10Hz for real-time detection.

Abstract

As drone use has become more widespread, there is a critical need to ensure safety and security. A key element of this is robust and accurate drone detection and localization. While cameras and other optical sensors like LiDAR are commonly used for object detection, their performance degrades under adverse lighting and environmental conditions. Therefore, this has generated interest in finding more reliable alternatives, such as millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar. Recent research on mmWave radar object detection has predominantly focused on 2D detection of road users. Although these systems demonstrate excellent performance for 2D problems, they lack the sensing capability to measure elevation, which is essential for 3D drone detection. To address this gap, we propose CubeDN, a single-stage end-to-end radar object detection network specifically designed for flying drones. CubeDN overcomes challenges such as poor elevation resolution by utilizing a dual radar configuration and a novel deep learning pipeline. It simultaneously detects, localizes, and classifies drones of two sizes, achieving decimeter-level tracking accuracy at closer ranges with overall $95\%$ average precision (AP) and $85\%$ average recall (AR). Furthermore, CubeDN completes data processing and inference at 10Hz, making it highly suitable for practical applications.