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

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Fang, Yuan, Shi, Fangzhan, Wei, Xijia, Chen, Qingchao, Chetty, Kevin, Julier, Simon
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Fang, Yuan
Shi, Fangzhan
Wei, Xijia
Chen, Qingchao
Chetty, Kevin
Julier, Simon
author_facet Fang, Yuan
Shi, Fangzhan
Wei, Xijia
Chen, Qingchao
Chetty, Kevin
Julier, Simon
contents 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.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_17831
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CubeDN: Real-time Drone Detection in 3D Space from Dual mmWave Radar Cubes
Fang, Yuan
Shi, Fangzhan
Wei, Xijia
Chen, Qingchao
Chetty, Kevin
Julier, Simon
Robotics
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.
title CubeDN: Real-time Drone Detection in 3D Space from Dual mmWave Radar Cubes
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17831