Airspace Radar for Drone Collision Avoidance, Airspace Management and Automated Landings

Cambridge Sensoriis is a designer of micro radar sensors for applications that require robust high-resolution measurement in a low-SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power) package. We design the radar antenna, radar signal processing and radio frequency componentry which enable drone collision avoidance, automated landing and localisation in GNSS denied environments.

Our airspace radar solutions measure range, azimuth, elevation, and velocity to objects, detecting potential obstacles and waypoints in all operating and weather conditions.

This lightweight, highly sensitive, all weather and easy to install Radar technology is suitable for use on all autonomous vehicles including drones, maximising automation, and minimising costs.

Active Radar Cooperating

We have also developed a patented capability, Active Radar Cooperating – or ARC – two or more radars cooperating with each other. This allows our customers to achieve high precision measurement of landing pads (onshore and offshore) for autonomous control; locate a journey endpoint within centimetres, without satellite navigation (GNSS); and provide assured positioning while a drone surveys infrastructure, amongst many other potential applications.

Radar for automated landing on a vessel or landing pad

Drone radar system for automatic landings

Our ARC-Landing radar system is a vital part of supporting the autonomous landing of an Uncrewed Air System (UAS) onto a vessel.  The UAS will have completed a mission, such as ship-to-shore (or port-to-ship) drop, last mile resupply in a military mission, or an offshore windfarm inspection, then the UAS would need to land on the moving vessel, possibly in a GNSS denied environment.

An ARC primary radar, installed onto the UAS, will actively cooperate with ARC secondaries on the moving vessel, enabling relative positioning during the critical approach and landing phases of drone flight, through our ARC-Landing system.

Automation removes the need for highly skilled and scarce offshore drone pilots and hence greatly reduces the costs of offshore windfarm maintenance and ship-to-shore or port-to-ship operations.  Our radar system also enables critical military logistics to take place, ensuring that the key assets reach their destination in all weather, day, or night.

ARC-Landing can be used in conjunction with RadarAware, our micro radar, which enables a drone to detect objects in the flight path, supporting the safe operation of drones in and around turbines, high-value assets, or infrastructure as they are surveyed.

It provides collision avoidance measurements in all weather conditions and minimises costly damage to turbines and other high-value assets, minimising time offline as well as providing peace of mind to the asset owners.

ARC-Landing also facilitates the automation of a drone landing onto a pad, such as in the case of a vertiport.  The micro radar installed onto any drone can locate the drone in 3D relative to the pad for autonomous landing.

More information: ARC-Landing

Drone Collision Avoidance for BVLOS Flight

Airspace management & object detection radar

Sensoriis provides both aerial and ground-based radar systems that enhance safety and efficiency, providing accurate situational awareness and helping to accelerate the integration of drone operations into everyday life.

Resilient drone operation over long distances, in changeable weather, requires robust onboard sensing. Our RadarAware micro radar enables a drone to detect objects in the flight path, whether in the air or ground based.

RadarAware RA1000 is a robust, all weather onboard air-to-air radar that detects obstacles and prevents accidents through collision with cables, infrastructure, trees, non-cooperating drones, birds, and light aircraft.

Automated drones flown ‘Beyond Visual Line of Sight’ (BVLOS) can gather detailed close-quarter data from power lines or railway catenary lines, assessing for corrosion and other problems in relation to signalling infrastructure, alignment of tracks and switching points.

Current inspections and maintenance work is often carried out from helicopters, or manually flown drones, which is labour intensive and expensive. Our drone radar system significantly reduces survey costs by supporting long flying missions without the oversight of a ground-based pilot and provides safety and peace of mind during such operations.

Additionally, RadarAware RA1000, installed on the ground, allows surveillance and monitoring of the surrounding sky from the landing area of a vertiport for example.

Our systems detect drones approaching the vertiport and reports their locations. They support safe coordination of the approach of drones that we expect, and unanticipated flying objects such as non-cooperating drones, light aircraft and general aviation. This is airspace management that can be trusted.

More information: RadarAware

Accurate localisation radar in GNSS denied environments

Last mile resupply and location of a mission endpoint

Sensoriis ARC-Find radar enables a last mile resupply drone, or ground vehicle, to locate the endpoint of a mission within centimetres without the need for satellite positioning or inter communication between drone and endpoint. ARC-Find also supports the return of the drone to the resupply point or hub.

In the case of Naval resupply, ARC-Find can locate and enable the return of the drone to the ship which may have moved during the drone mission, again without satellite positioning.

The ARC-Find micro radar is low power, lightweight, and resilient to counter measures that defeat satellite positioning systems. The system supports ‘Default Silent’ technology. The ARC radar on the ground remains silent, non-transmitting, until interrogated by a compatible radar in a recognised encoded band. This is particularly important in military deployments where electronic radio stealth is required.

More information: ARC-Find