METHOD OF LOCATING RADIO-FREQUENCY SOURCE Russian patent published in 2014 - IPC G01S5/12 

FIELD: radio engineering, communication.

SUBSTANCE: method comprises preliminary delivery to the presumed area of location of the radio-frequency source a plurality of sensors (not less than four), structurally mounted on multicopter-type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) of the "mini" category. Each UAV sensor comprises a navigation-time unit, a nondirectional antenna, a panoramic receiver and a transceiver. A medium-class unmanned or manned aerial vehicle (relay aerial vehicle) is used as a means of delivering and maintaining UAV sensors, as well as for relaying coordinate information coming from said sensors, and transmitting control commands from a ground-based control and processing station. After delivering to the presumed area of location of radio-frequency sources, the UAV sensors are distributed in space based on commands from the ground-based control and processing station. A set of UAV sensors and relay aerial vehicles is formed in space by a multi-position radio monitoring system. The method employs the property of multicopters to assume a fixed state in space, which lowers the system dynamic factor and enables to form an analogue to ground-based receiving stations in the air (one of which is central, located at minimal distance from the relay aerial vehicle, and the rest being peripheral) of a difference-range-finding system. Based on signals from the navigation-time unit, coordinates of each UAV sensor in space are determined and then high-precision referenced with their own coordinate system of the difference-range-finding system and a single time. To this end, information on coordinates of peripheral UAV sensors in the formed difference-range-finding system is transmitted to the central UAV sensor. Each UAV sensor, having a panoramic receiver, searches for radio-frequency source signals in a given frequency range. Upon detection of a radio-frequency source signal, said signal is digitised and transmitted by the transmitter of the transceiver to the central UAV sensor. Based on incoming data, the central UAV sensor determines the location of the radio-frequency source.

EFFECT: high accuracy of locating a radio-frequency source operating in a hard-to-access location.

4 dwg