Autor: José Tomás González Partida

Director: Mateo Burgos García

Fecha de Exposición y Defensa: 05/06/2009

This Ph. D. thesis belongs to the specific framework of using radar sensors aboard UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). The interest in UAV systems started twenty years ago, because they do not need a pilot on board. This advantage has several interesting consequences: UAVs can be smaller and consume lower energy than manned aircrafts, because UAVs do not need a cockpit and are less weighted. They can carry out dangerous missions, in hostile environments, and under critical weather conditions, without risking pilot¿s life. Furthermore, UAVs overcome all the human being limits, flying at very high altitude, with very high accelerations, and for long periods of time. To use radar aboard UAVs, on one hand, it is interesting that the radar has a good performance, i.e., a high resolution, a high sensitivity, a high dynamic range, a large range, and a wide functionality. On the other hand, it is interesting to reduce the size, volume, weight, and power consumption of the sensor. The use of radar systems aboard UAVs has a wide range of promising military and civilian applications: reconnaissance, surveillance, mapping, vegetation and terrain analysis, tactical management, waste tracking, minefield detection, disasters and crisis management, etc. The main advantage is that radar sensors are all-weather, and can operate with reduced visibility, during the night, with smoke or fog. The main objective of this Ph. D. thesis is the analysis of the drawbacks associated to the use of radars aboard UAVs, proposing novel solutions to overcome them.