A new method of data fusion by IR sensor and millimeter-wave radar for UAV

The application of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) is wide. Generally, the IR sensor can be used together with radar. Aiming at the problems that the state estimation of a moving target is unstable when using an IR sensor in the rectangular coordinate system and that the data rate of the IR sensor is inconsistent with the data rate of the radar, we propose a new method that combines the IR sensor data with the millimeter-wave radar(mmw) data under the modified spherical coordinates (MSC). Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the full paper explain our new method. Subsection 1. 1 briefs the transformation of data coordinate systems. Subsection 1. 2 briefs synchronous data fusion. Sections 2 and 3 explain our new method; their core consists of; we use the optimal data compression method to fuse the IR sensor data and the mmw data, thus eliminating the instability of the IR sensor in the rectangular coordinate system and the inconsistency between the IR sensor data rate and the mmw radar data rate. The simulation results, given in Figs. 4, 5 and 6 that present the estimation errors of our new method, and their analysis show preliminarily that our new method can achieve the synchronous data fusion of die IR sensor and the mmw radar and effectively enhance the target tracking ability of a UAV.