Biologically Inspired Waveform Diversity for Synthetic Autonomous Navigation Sensing
Abstract
Echolocating mammals such as bats, whales and dolphins have been using waveform diversity for over 50 million years. Synthetic systems such as sonar and radar have been in existence for less than 100 years. Echolocating mammals vary their Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF), power and frequency content of their transmitted waveforms. This has enabled them to evolve highly sophisticated orientation techniques and the ability to forage for food. Moreover, recent developments in technology mean that it is now possible to replicate all of the above methods in synthetic sensing systems such as radar and sonar. Thus echolocating mammals potentially offer valuable insights that might allow improvements in the performance of their synthetic counterparts. This may enable capabilities such as autonomous navigation and automatic target classification which have hitherto proved elusive. We examine the waveforms used by bats as a function of orientation and intent. In particular we carry out this examination using techniques and metrics typically employed in the design and analysis of radar systems. By conducting the analysis in this way we are able to derive an understanding as to how bats are exploiting waveform diversity and how this can be exploited in radar and sonar systems for applications such as autonomous navigation and target classification.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA567765
Entities
People
- Chris Baker
- David Blacknell
- Gareth Jones
- Michele Vespe
Organizations
- University College London