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Main Authors: Ji, Chenqing, Liu, Jiahong, Liu, Qionghui, Sun, Yifei, Yu, Chao, Wang, Rui
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08203
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author Ji, Chenqing
Liu, Jiahong
Liu, Qionghui
Sun, Yifei
Yu, Chao
Wang, Rui
author_facet Ji, Chenqing
Liu, Jiahong
Liu, Qionghui
Sun, Yifei
Yu, Chao
Wang, Rui
contents In this letter, a dual-bistatic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) tracking system utilizing downlink Long-Term Evolution (LTE) signals is proposed and demonstrated. Particularly, two LTE base stations (BSs) are exploited as illumination sources. Two passive sensing receivers are deployed at different locations to detect the bistatic Doppler frequencies of the target UAV at different directions according to downlink signals transmitted from their corresponding BSs, such that the velocities of the UAV versus time can be estimated. Hence, the trajectories of the target UAV can be reconstructed. Although both the target UAV and the sensing receivers are around 200 meters away from the illuminating BSs, it is demonstrated by experiments that the tracking errors are below 50 centimeters for 90% of the complicated trajectories, when the distances between the UAV and sensing receivers are less than 30 meters. Note this accuracy is significantly better than the ranging resolution of LTE signals, high-accuracy trajectory tracking for UAV might be feasible via multi-angle bistatic Doppler measurements if the receivers are deployed with a sufficient density.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_08203
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Experimental Study on Fine-Grained Bistatic Sensing of UAV Trajectory via Cellular Downlink Signals
Ji, Chenqing
Liu, Jiahong
Liu, Qionghui
Sun, Yifei
Yu, Chao
Wang, Rui
Signal Processing
In this letter, a dual-bistatic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) tracking system utilizing downlink Long-Term Evolution (LTE) signals is proposed and demonstrated. Particularly, two LTE base stations (BSs) are exploited as illumination sources. Two passive sensing receivers are deployed at different locations to detect the bistatic Doppler frequencies of the target UAV at different directions according to downlink signals transmitted from their corresponding BSs, such that the velocities of the UAV versus time can be estimated. Hence, the trajectories of the target UAV can be reconstructed. Although both the target UAV and the sensing receivers are around 200 meters away from the illuminating BSs, it is demonstrated by experiments that the tracking errors are below 50 centimeters for 90% of the complicated trajectories, when the distances between the UAV and sensing receivers are less than 30 meters. Note this accuracy is significantly better than the ranging resolution of LTE signals, high-accuracy trajectory tracking for UAV might be feasible via multi-angle bistatic Doppler measurements if the receivers are deployed with a sufficient density.
title An Experimental Study on Fine-Grained Bistatic Sensing of UAV Trajectory via Cellular Downlink Signals
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08203