Telescope-based scanning LiDAR system for eye-safe long-range UAV localization and tracking

This paper presents the design and experimental evaluation of a telescope-based scanning light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system for eye-safe long-range localization and tracking of small uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). A prototype with an eye-safe custom-built laser transmitter module, a one-dimensional APD detector array, a telescope, and a telescope mount is implemented to verify the system design. Experiments from a laboratory environment demonstrate robust static and dynamic localization of a DJI Phantom 3 UAV at a range of 300 m. Field tests confirm the system's capabilities, successfully demonstrating distance measurements to a DJI Matrice 30 at ranges up to 50 m, and the feasibility of hybrid target tracking at velocities up to 15 m/s at distances of 300 m, where horizontal tracking is achieved using LiDAR data and applying a spatio-temporal filter with a DBSCAN-based algorithm. In contrast, vertical tracking is performed based on image-based processing.