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Washington University in St. Louis

Locating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

<p>Despite the popularity and usefulness of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones, they are not allowed to fly in some areas without prior permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). However, many incidents of UAVs breaching such restrictions have been reported. A UAV location system can help the law enforcement to be alerted and can prevent UAVs breaching any restricted area without permission. This master thesis proposes a UAV location system where each UAV has a unique identification tag. The method consists of two stages: distance and location estimation. We compared distance estimation using three different methods: Time of Arrival (ToA), counter, and Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI). Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) protocol is utilized in the system. Initial results have shown that RSSI is the most accurate among the three methods and also has a minimal cost. Therefore, RSSI was used to estimate the distance between the UAV and each of the ground stations. Location of the UAV can be determined using four ground stations coordinates and their estimated distance from the UAV. Several factors that may affect the measured RSSI are also discussed. These include different environments, different heights, antenna directions, and different message lengths.</p>

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Engineering (ME)
Level thesis:degree_level
Thesis
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Science & Engineering
Year dc:date.available
2017

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Ghubaish, Ali
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Raj Jain
  • Raj Jain, Chair Roger Chamberlain Ben Moseley

Subjects

dc:subject × 4

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • I have not registered my thesis with the U.S. Copyright Office, and do not intend to.
Language dc:language
English (en)

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:openscholarship.wustl.edu:eng_etds-1277

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Washington University in St. Louis
Base URL
openscholarship.wustl.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Ghubaish, Ali. Locating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Thesis thesis, 2017. https://doi.org/10.7936/K73B5XMR