Model-Aided Drone Classification Using Convolutional Neural Networks
Alexander Karlsson, Magnus Jansson, Mikael Hämäläinen · 2022 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf22) · 2022
Classifiers using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) often yield high accuracies on samples that come from the same distribution as the training data. In this study we evaluate a CNN classifier's ability to discriminate drones from non-drone targets, such as birds, when they are not represented in the training data. We found that the mean accuracy on such out-of-distribution drones was 78%. By introducing a synthetic drone class, generated from a mathematical model, the out-of-distribution drone accuracy was improved to 86%. When trained on all drone types the mean accuracy over all classes was 90%. The data was collected with a 77 GHz mechanically scanning radar with only 9 ms dwell time.