I.

INTRODUCTION
Drones, or unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), are widely
Machine Learning for UAV used for illegal activities and terrorist attacks. For example,
in 2019, flights were delayed at an airport in the U.K. due
Classification Employing to drone sightings [1], [2]. In 2021, a terrorist organization
tried to assassinate the Iraqi Prime Minister using drones [3]
Mechanical Control while, in the same year, another terrorist organization at-
tacked an airport in Turkey [4]. In 2022, a drone attack in the
Information UAE killed 3 and injured 6 people [5]. Another drone attack
at an airport in Saudi Arabia injured 12 people [6]. Most
recently, many flights were delayed in the U.K. after drone
sightings in the vicinity of an airport [7]. It is anticipated
that the mobility, cost, and ease of operation of drones will
AHMED N. SAYED , Graduate Student Member, IEEE be of high appeal to highly organized narcotic cartels and
OMAR M. RAMAHI , Fellow, IEEE even individual drug smugglers [8].
GEORGE SHAKER , Senior Member, IEEE
Most recently, the war in Ukraine demonstrated how
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada drones are affecting modern warfare. In this war, drones
were used for many tasks, from aerial surveillance to missile
defense [9], [10]. Drones are capable of carrying explo-
sives, dropping bombs, firing missiles, dropping antitanks
Range–Doppler images are widely used to classify different types munitions, and aerial photography, and they can be used
of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) because each UAV has a unique in electronic warfare (EW). This is why detection and
range–Doppler signature. However, a UAV’s range–Doppler signa-
classification of drones at a distance is of critical importance
ture depends on its movement mechanism. This is why a classifier’s
accuracy would be degraded if the effect of the mechanical control in order to have enough time to take necessary countermea-
system of UAVs was not taken into consideration, which may lead sures.
to a nonunique signature of a UAV while in-flight. In this article, a To detect drones, radar systems are typically preferred in
full-wave electromagnetic CAD tool is used to investigate the effect of comparison to other systems. This is because radar systems
the control systems of two quadcopters, a hexacopter, and a helicopter
can work day and night and in all weather conditions.
UAVs on their range–Doppler signatures. A mechanical control-based
machine learning (ML) algorithm is introduced to classify the four They can also detect and track multiple drones and track
UAVs. Different ML algorithms were applied to the generated datasets autonomous flights and have the potential to classify dif-
that considered the mechanical control information of UAVs. The con- ferent targets when combined with machine learning (ML)
volutional neural network algorithms provided robust performance algorithms [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16].
reaching an accuracy of higher than 90%.
Range–Doppler (RD) images are widely used to classify
radar targets [17], [18], [19]. Each drone has its own set of
unique RD signatures that depend on the drone’s move-
ment mechanism. Typically, drones have eight main unique
movements: The drone is able to throttle up, throttle down,
pitch forward, pitch backward, roll left, roll right, yaw left,
and yaw right. These different motions are performed by
changing individually the speed of each rotor.
The RD signature of each movement of a drone differs
Manuscript received 4 October 2022; revised 28 January 2023 and 24 April
2023; accepted 26 April 2023. Date of publication 2 May 2023; date of
from the RD signature for the other movements. If a clas-
current version 9 February 2024. sifier was trained on specific movements only, the error in
drones’ classification would be higher if the classifier was
DOI. No. 10.1109/TAES.2023.3272303
tested on different movements from those on which it was
Refereeing of this contribution was handled by L. Rosenberg. trained. This is the case in all previous works, where ML
This work was supported in part by NSERC under Grant 55059. algorithms were trained and tested using the same datasets.
These datasets simply did not consider the effect of the
Authors’ address: Ahmed N. Sayed, Omar M. Ramahi, and George Shaker
are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Univer-
mechanical control information of the drones on their RD
sity of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada, E-mail: (ansayed@ images.
uwaterloo.ca; [email protected]; [email protected]). (Corre- Full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulation software
sponding author: Ahmed N. Sayed.)). can be used to generate radar drones’ datasets [20].
In this work, Ansys high-frequency structure simulator
© 2023 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Cre- (HFSS) [21], [22] is used to investigate the effect of the
ative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see mechanical control systems on the RD signatures of drones.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ For validation, four different drones are considered in

68 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 60, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2024
 Fig. 2. Quadcopter frame body [29].

Fig. 1. (a) Traditional method. (b) Proposed MCML method. II. MATHEMATICAL MODELS
This section describes the mathematical model of the
this work: 1) the MD-1000 quadcopter drone [23], 2) the equations of motions for the quadcopter and the hexacopter
DJIFPV quadcopter drone [24], 3) the DJI S900 hexacopter drones in different motions. The equations of motions for
drone [25], and 4) the Black Eagle 50 helicopter drone [26]. the helicopter drone can be found in [28].
To create RD images for the designed dataset, the Shooting
and Bouncing Rays SBR+ technique (in HFSS) is used. It is A. Quadcopter Equations of Motions
an asymptotic high-frequency EM simulator for modeling The quadcopter is controlled by changing the angular
EM interaction [27]. In this work, a 77-GHz FMCW radar, velocities of the rotors. Basically, a quadcopter is a four-
modeled in HFSS, was used to generate the datasets, as rotor helicopter. Its thrust to hover or throttle is provided
short-range radars are widely used because of their high by the four rotors equally while other movements can be
accuracy in detecting RD signatures. controlled by changing the motors’ speeds. The four rotors
The following is a summary of the contributions in this of a quadcopter are arranged clockwise (CW) and counter-
article. CW (CCW) that work together to provide stability, and all
required movements. Quadcopters hover in the air, throttle
1) Generating radar datasets that contain drones with- up and down, roll left and right, and yaw left and right.
out constraints using full-wave EM CAD tools. The body frame of a quadcopter is shown in Fig. 2 [29].
2) Applying ML algorithms to the datasets generated The forces and moments on a quadcopter are given as
by full-wave EM CAD tools. [29], [30]
3) An investigation of the effect of the mechanical
control information of drones on the RD signatures Fi = K f × ωi2 (1)
of drones and the accuracy of ML classifiers is con- Mi = Km × ωi2 (2)
ducted. A mechanical control-based ML (MCML)
algorithm is proposed to avoid degradation in ML where Fi is the lifting force for each propeller, Mi is the
accuracy when ignoring the mechanical control in- moment at each propeller, i = 1, 2, 3, 4, K f and Km are the
formation of drones. Fig. 1(a) shows the tradi- aerodynamics force and moment constants, and ωi is the
tional method, whereas Fig. 1(b) shows the proposed angular speed for each propeller.
MCML method. The resultant thrust by opposite propellers generates
4) An investigation and comparison between different moments in x and y axes, Mx and My
classifiers on radar drones’ datasets considering the
My = (F2 − F4 ) × L (3)
mechanical control information of drones is pre-
sented. Mx = (F1 − F3 ) × L (4)

The rest of this article is organized as follows. In Sec- where L is the length between the two propellers. mg is the
tion II, the mathematical models of the control systems for gravity force that acts in the opposite direction of the thrust.
the quadcopter and the hexacopter drones are presented. In According to Newton’s second law of motion [30],
Section III, the radar parameters, the drones’ specifications, the linear and rotational motions of a quadcopter can be
the simulation setups for different movements of the drones, expressed as
and the simulation results that contain the RD signatures for Force = mass × linear acceleration (5)
different cases of the drones movements are introduced. The Torque = inertia × angular acceleration. (6)
classification results and validation of the MCML algorithm
are shown in Section IV. Finally, Section V concludes this Since inertia is the object’s resistance to change, while in
article. motion, as the momentum increases, the inertia increases.

SAYED ET AL.: MACHINE LEARNING FOR UAV CLASSIFICATION EMPLOYING MECHANICAL CONTROL INFORMATION 69
The linear motion of a quadcopter is represented in (5) while
(6) represents the rotational motion.
When a quadcopter hovers, all the forces applied to
it must be in balance, which means the total lifting force
equals its weight. Additionally, the conservation of momen-
tum gives
mg = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 . (7)
The equation of motion for a hovering quadcopter is
∂ 2r
m = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 − mg = 0 (8)
∂t 2
where m is the mass of the quadcopter, and r is the position.
For a quadcopter to throttle up and throttle down, its
equations of motion are given as

∂ 2r F + F2 + F3 + F4 − mg > 0, F > mg
m 2 = 1 (9) Fig. 3. Hexacopter frame body [32].
∂t F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 − mg < 0, F < mg
where the total lifting force F = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 , in addi- The body frame of a hexacopter is shown in Fig. 3 [32].
tion, all moments = 0. On the other hand, in yaw motions, According to the work in [30], [31], and [32], the forces and
all moments = 0, while F = mg, then moments on a hexacopter follow (1) and (2).
∂ 2r The resultant moment for a hexacopter is given by
m = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 − mg = 0 (10)
∂t 2 M = r1 F1 + r2 F2 + r3 F3 + r4 F4 + r5 F5 + r6 F6 (16)
∂ 2ψ
IZZ 2 = M1 + M2 + M3 + M4 (11) where Fi is the lifting force for each propeller, and ri is the
∂t radius from the center of the hexacopter to each propeller,
where the yaw ψ, pitch θ, and roll vφ are called the Euler i = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
angles [30]. These angles describe the angular orientation The equation of motion for a hovering hexacopter is
of a fixed body with respect to a reference frame. Due to the given as
quadcopter symmetrical frame, the inertia matrix I is given
as ∂ 2r
⎡ ⎤ m = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 + F5 + F6 − mg = 0. (17)
∂t 2
IX X 0 0
⎢ ⎥ For a hexacopter to throttle up and throttle down, its
I = ⎣ 0 IY Y 0⎦ (12)
equations of motion are given as
0 0 IZZ 
∂ 2r F − mg > 0, F > mg
Finally, in pitch and roll motions, all moments =  0, m 2 = (18)
∂t F − mg < 0, F < mg
and mg < F . The pitch and roll angles must be nonzero;
this causes nonzero components of thrust in the horizontal where the total lifting force F = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 + F5 +
direction, which causes a resultant moment in the horizontal F6 , all moments = 0. In yaw motions, all moments =  0
plane. The equations of motion become while F = mg, and the total torque in the z-axis can be
obtained by increasing/decreasing the CW rotor speeds
∂ 2r
m = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 − mg > 0 (13) while decreasing/increasing the CCW rotors speed. The
∂t 2 equation of motion for the yaw motion is given as
∂ 2φ
IX X 2 = (F1 − F3 ) × L (14) ∂ 2r
∂t m = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 + F5 + F6 − mg = 0 (19)
∂t 2
∂ 2θ
IY Y 2 = (F2 − F4 ) × L. (15) Finally, in pitch and roll motions, all moments = 0,
∂t
and mg < F . The pitch and roll angles must be nonzero;
B. Hexacopter Equations of Motions this causes nonzero components of thrust in the horizon-
Similar to the quadcopter drone, the hexacopter drone tal direction, which causes the resultant moment to be
is controlled by changing the angular velocities of the in the horizontal plane. The pitch motion is achieved by
rotors; however, it provides more flight time and has the increasing/decreasing the rear rotors’ speeds while de-
ability to carry more load. It can be considered a six-rotor creasing/increasing the front rotors’ speeds. Roll motion
helicopter. Its thrust is provided by the six rotors equally is achieved by increasing/decreasing the side rotors’ speeds
while other movements can be controlled by changing the while decreasing/increasing the other side rotors’ speeds.
motors’ speeds. The rotors of a hexacopter are arranged The equation of motion becomes
CW and CCW that work together to provide stability, and ∂ 2r
all required movements for a hexacopter [31]. m = F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 + F5 + F6 − mg > 0. (20)
∂t 2

70 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 60, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2024
 TABLE I
Used Radar Parameters

TABLE II
Drones Dimensions

The torques applied to the hexacopter body around the roll,

pitch, and yaw angles given by
3
τφ = K f r ω2 2 + ω3 2 − ω5 2 − ω6 2 (21)
4
ω2 2 ω3 2 ω5 2 ω6 2
τθ = K f r −ω1 2 − + + ω4 2 + −
4 4 4 4
(22)
τψ = b −ω1 2 + ω2 2 − ω3 2 + ω4 2 − ω5 2 + ω6 2 (23)
where b is a constant. Fig. 4. (a) DJI S900 hexacopter drone [25]. (b) Its HFSS model.
As shown in (1) and (2), by mechanically controlling the
speeds of the drones’ rotors, the behavior or movement for
the quadcopter and the hexacopter drones changes, which
also affects the RD signatures for these drones.

III. SIMULATION SETUPS

The radar parameters that were used in this work are
shown in Table I. Four different drones were modeled
using HFSS, the MD4-1000 quadcopter drone, the DJIFPV
quadcopter drone, the Black Eagle 50 helicopter drone, and
the DJI S900 hexacopter drone. The dimensions for these
drones are shown in Table II. Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows the
DJI S900 hexacopter drone [25] and its model in HFSS.
The MD4-1000 quadcopter drone, the DJIFPV quadcopter
drone, and the Black Eagle 50 helicopter drone shown in
Fig. 5 are modeled using a similar approach. HFSS test
setups for the different movements of the four drones are
shown in Fig. 7(a)–(d). The radar, drones, drones’ moving
directions, drones’ moving speeds, and rotors RPM are all
modeled using HFSS. To throttle the drone up, the rotors
must have the same speed, which is modeled to be high
enough to generate a resultant thrust that exceeds the weight
of the drone, whereas to throttle down, the rotors’ speeds
are modeled with a lower speed, as shown in Fig. 7(a). To
pitch the drone forward, its back rotors must have higher
speeds than the front rotors, and vice versa to pitch the
drone backward, as shown in Fig. 7(b). To roll the drone
left, the right rotors must have higher speeds than the left
rotors, and vice versa to roll the drone right, as shown in Fig. 5. (a) MD4-1000 quadcopter drone [23]. (b) DJIFPV quadcopter
Fig. 7(c). Each rotor rotates in a different direction to the one drone [24]. (c) Black Eagle 50 helicopter drone [26].

SAYED ET AL.: MACHINE LEARNING FOR UAV CLASSIFICATION EMPLOYING MECHANICAL CONTROL INFORMATION 71
 beside it to keep the drone stable. To yaw the drone left, the
CCW rotors must have higher speeds than the CW rotors,
and vice versa to yaw the drone right as shown in Fig. 7(d).
For instance, Fig. 6 summarizes the different motions with
the rotor speeds for a quadcopter [33].
As shown in Fig. 7(a), the drones are 30 m away from
the radar; they throttle up for a distance of 25 m, with
rotors’ speeds equal to 1500 r/min. They throttle down with
rotors’ speeds equal to 750 r/min. As shown in Fig. 7(b),
the drones pitch forward toward the radar with a fixed speed
of 5 m/s, from 55 m to 5 m away from the radar, with
back rotor speeds equal to 1500 r/min and forward rotor
speeds equal to 750 r/min. Also, they pitch backward with
the same speed of 5 m/s from 5 m to 55 m, with back rotors’
speeds equal to 750 r/min and forward rotors’ speeds equal
to 1500 r/min. The drones roll left at 30 m away from the
Fig. 6. Quadcopter control [33]. radar for a distance of 50 m. The right rotors’ speeds equal to
1500 r/min and left rotors’ speeds equal to 750 r/min. They
roll right with the right rotors’ speeds equal to 750 r/min
and the left rotors’ speeds equal to 1500 r/min, as shown in
Fig. 7(c). Finally, as shown in Fig. 7(d), the drones yaw left
at 30 m away from the radar with the CCW rotor speeds
equal to 1500 r/min and the CW rotors’ speeds equal to
750 r/min. They yaw right with the CCW rotors’ speeds
equal to 750 r/min and the CW rotors’ speeds equal to
1500 r/min.
Figs. 8–10 show the effect of the mechanical control
information on the RD images of the MD4-1000 quadcopter
drone and the DJI S900 hexacopter drone only as examples
of the effect of the mechanical control information of drones
on their RD images. The required radar datasets for the
four drones were generated using the RD images, which
were generated using Ansys HFSS. The simulation setups
used for all the different cases in which the drones move
are shown in Fig. 7(a)–(d). A 77-GHz FMCW radar was
modeled in HFSS; its chosen parameters are shown in
Table I. The RD images for each drone were extracted
from HFSS to create the required datasets. For each drone,
700 frames were extracted, with a total of 2800 frames in the
generated dataset. The extracted frames were normalized,
and a threshold was applied to them.
In this work, four different datasets were utilized, all
of which were generated using Ansys HFSS and contain
the RD images pertaining to four types of drones investi-
gated in this study. The first dataset comprises 1200 RD
images, with 300 images corresponding to each drone, and
encompasses pitch forward, pitch backward, throttle-up,
and throttle-down movements, as illustrated in Fig. 7(a)
and (b). The second dataset comprises 1600 RD images,
with 400 images for each drone, and encompasses roll
left, roll right, yaw left, and yaw right movements, as
depicted in Fig. 7(c) and (d). The third dataset encom-
passes all types of movements with varying speeds and
includes 2800 RD images, with 700 images for each drone.
The fourth dataset was employed to validate the proposed
Fig. 7. HFSS test setups for the drones’ different movements. approach. It includes RD images of the four drones with
(a) Throttle up and down. (b) Pitch forward and backward. (c) Roll left randomized motions with varying speeds, as illustrated in
and right. (d) Yaw left and right. Fig. 16.

72 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 60, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2024
 Fig. 8. (a) RD image for throttle-up quadcopter. (b) RD image for throttle-down quadcopter. (c) RD image for pitch forward quadcopter. (d) RD
image for pitch backward quadcopter. (e) RD image for roll left quadcopter. (f) RD image for roll right quadcopter.

The number of RD images in each dataset depends on TABLE III

the number of modeled motions and the number of RD Generated Datasets
images for each motion. The datasets are divided into 80%
training set and 20% test set. Table III presents a summary
of the types of motions in the four datasets utilized in this
study, along with the number of frames contained in each
dataset.

SAYED ET AL.: MACHINE LEARNING FOR UAV CLASSIFICATION EMPLOYING MECHANICAL CONTROL INFORMATION 73
 Fig. 9. (a) RD image for throttle-up hexacopter. (b) RD image for throttle-down hexacopter. (c) RD image for pitch forward hexacopter. (d) RD
image for pitch backward hexacopter. (e) RD image for roll left hexacopter. (f) RD image for roll right hexacopter.

IV. CLASSIFICATION RESULTS Black Eagle 50 helicopter drone are denoted as Quad A,
Quad B, Hexa, and Heli, respectively. The eight classifiers
Eight different ML algorithms were applied to the are three different CNN algorithms, support vector machine,
dataset generated according to Fig. 7(a)–(d) to investigate K-nearest neighbors, Naive Bayes, random forest, and de-
and compare their performance in classifying the four cision tree classifiers.
drones. The MD4-1000 quadcopter drone, the DJIFPV The classification accuracy for the eight ML algorithms
quadcopter drone, the DJI S900 hexacopter drone, and the decreased when the mechanical control information of

74 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 60, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2024
Fig. 10. (a) RD image for yaw left quadcopter. (b) RD image for yaw right quadcopter. (c) RD image for yaw left hexacopter. (d) RD image for yaw
right hexacopter.

denoted as CNN1, the VGG16 algorithm [36], denoted as

CNN2, and the light CNN algorithm [37], denoted as CNN3.
For a more detailed investigation, the classification reports
for the three CNN classifiers are shown in Fig. 12(a) and
(b) when the mechanical control information of drones was
not taken into consideration and when it was taken into
consideration, respectively.
The classification reports for the CNN classifiers focus
only on the quadcopters and the hexacopter drones as the he-
licopter drone is easily differentiated because it has a larger
radar cross-section area than the other drones. The three
most accurate CNN algorithms were modified to match
the RD image dimensions. The DopplerNet algorithm was
Fig. 11. Different classifiers’ accuracy when considering/not found to have slightly higher accuracy than the other two
considering the mechanical control information of drones. CNN algorithms. Therefore, it was used to classify the four
drones. A Maxpooling layer is added to this algorithm to
drones were not taken into consideration while the eight decrease its complexity to avoid overfitting. The flowchart
ML algorithms performed well when they considered all for this algorithm, which consists of eight layers, is shown
the mechanical control information of drones, as shown in in Fig. 13(a) .
Fig. 11. CNNs are powerful algorithms that are frequently According to the chosen range and velocity resolutions
used for radar targets classification [34], [35]. Fig. 11 shows shown in Table I, the input layer’s dimension was 800 × 500.
the accuracy of different ML algorithms. The three most A convolutional layer with 32 filters, a 3 × 3 kernel, and
accurate algorithms are the DopplerNet algorithm [34], Relu activation function yields an output having a size of

SAYED ET AL.: MACHINE LEARNING FOR UAV CLASSIFICATION EMPLOYING MECHANICAL CONTROL INFORMATION 75
Fig. 12. Comparison of the classification reports for the three different CNN algorithms used in this work when (a) not considering the mechanical
control information of drones. (b) Considering the mechanical control information of drones.

76 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 60, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2024
 Fig. 13. (a) Flowchart of the DopplerNet CNN algorithm. (b) Its
confusion matrix when it was applied to the same dataset. Fig. 14. Confusion matrix for the DopplerNet CNN algorithm when
(a) not considering the mechanical control information of drones.
(b) Considering the mechanical control information of drones.
798 × 498 × 32. A Maxpooling, 2 × 2, layer follows the
convolutional layer, its output size is 399 × 249 × 32. A that covers all possible mechanical control information as
flattened layer is used to reshape the previous feature map shown in Fig. 1(b), its accuracy would remain higher than
into a vector, its output size is 3 179 232. Four dense layers 90% as shown in Fig. 14(b), in this case, the classifier was
are used, three of them use a Relu activation function with an trained on dataset 1 and dataset 2 combined and tested on
output size of 64, and the last one that is the output layer uses dataset 3.
a Softmax activation function to calculate the probability of For additional validation, a completely different dataset
each of the four classes. The algorithm hyperparameters are was generated using HFSS. The new dataset, dataset 4,
10 epochs with a batch size of 10 and Adam optimizer [38]. contains random motions of the four drones at the following
The DopplerNet algorithm was trained on dataset 1 yielding different rotors’ speeds: 1000 r/min, 2000 r/min, 300 r/min,
an accuracy higher than 90%, as shown in Fig. 13(b). When and 800 r/min. The trained MCML algorithm that covers all
the trained algorithm is tested on dataset 2, its accuracy the mechanical control information of drones was applied
dropped to 50.25%, as shown in Fig. 14(a). This is the to this new scenario, yielding an accuracy of at least 90%,
case for all previous works in which an ML algorithm as shown in Fig. 15. In the state-of-the-art literature, ML
was trained and tested on the same dataset that did not algorithms were trained on the hovering motion only of the
contain all possible mechanical control information, for drones, and few times they were trained on the hovering and
example, [37], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], pitching motions as reported in [37], [39], [40], [41], [42],
[47], [48], [49]. But, if the classifier was trained on a dataset [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], and [49].

SAYED ET AL.: MACHINE LEARNING FOR UAV CLASSIFICATION EMPLOYING MECHANICAL CONTROL INFORMATION 77
Fig. 15. Confusion matrix for applying the proposed MCML algorithm
to the new dataset.

Fig. 16. HFSS simulation setup for all motions scenario.

A new scenario that contains random motions of the

four drones was modeled in Ansys HFSS to create a dataset
that contains RD images of the random motions for the
four drones, as shown in Fig. 16. The DopplerNet CNN
classifier was trained on the hovering and pitching motions
was trained solely on the hovering and pitching motions,
Fig. 17. Confusion matrix of applying the DopplerNet classifier on the
following the approach employed in the current state-of- full motions scenario according to (a) the state-of-the-art literature.
the-art literature [37], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], (b) Proposed MCML method.
[46], [47], [48], [49]. Then, the trained DopplerNet CNN
classifier was applied to the generated dataset according TABLE IV
to the scenario shown in Fig. 16, yielding an accuracy of AWR1443BOOST TI Radar Configuration
around 60%, as shown in Fig. 17(a). Finally, the MCML
algorithm, which considers all mechanical control infor-
mation of drones, was applied to the same dataset giving an
accuracy exceeding 97%, as shown in Fig. 17(b).
The impact of the mechanical control information on
the RD images of a real quadcopter was investigated using
the AWR1443BOOST Texas Instruments (TI) radar [50].
The AWR1443BOOST TI radar shown in Fig. 18 was used computer, a DCA1000EVM board [52] was employed.
to generate RD images of throttling up and pitching forward The AWR1443BOOST radar configuration utilized for this
motions for a DJI Phantom 3 standard quadcopter drone [51] investigation is presented in Table IV.
as a proof of concept. The AWR1443BOOST TI radar The DJI Phantom 3 standard drone was throttling up at
operates at 76–81 GHz and possesses three transmitters a distance around 25 m in front of the AWR1443BOOST
and four receivers. Owing to the radar’s internal digital radar, as depicted in Fig. 19; then, the DJI Phantom 3 stan-
signal processing (DSP), received signals can be processed dard drone started to pitch forward to the radar with a speed
without the need for an external DSP system. To capture the of 1.5 m/s. Fig. 20(a) and (b) shows the RD images of the
analog-to-digital converter data and transmit it to a personal throttling up and pitching forward movements, respectively.

78 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 60, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2024
 These images were obtained by applying a stationary clutter
removal algorithm, followed by an FFT on the fast-time
axis of the received signal to obtain the range information.
A second FFT was then applied to the slow-time axis of the
signal to extract the Doppler velocity of the DJI Phantom 3
standard drone.
The RD images depicted in Fig. 20, which are con-
sistent with the RD images generated for the MD4-1000
quadcopter using Ansys HFSS as illustrated in Fig. 8(a)
and (c), highlight the strong dependence of RD images of
drones on their mechanical control information.
Fig. 18. AWR1443BOOST TI radar (left in red) [50] and the
DCA1000EVM board (right in green) [52].
V. CONCLUSION
The effect of the mechanical control information on
the RD images for two quadcopters, a hexacopter, and a
helicopter UAVs was introduced. A full-wave EM CAD
tool is used to investigate these effects. The RD signatures
are demonstrated to be highly dependent on mechanical
control information for each drone. The mechanical control
information for the four drones was employed using eight
different classifiers to investigate their impact on classifying
the four drones. The proposed MCML method overcomes
the degraded classification accuracy in case the mechanical
control information of UAVs was not taken into consid-
eration. The MCML method provides classifier accuracy
higher than 90%. High accuracy was also achieved when the
trained MCML algorithm was applied to an unseen dataset
containing random motions of the four drones with differ-
ent rotors’ speeds. Overall, the proposed MCML method
demonstrated superior accuracy when compared to state-
of-the-art works employing radars for drone classification.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge CMC Microsystems
Fig. 19. Measurements setup of the DJI Phantom 3 standard quadcopter. and Ansys for providing the CAD tools licenses required for
this work.

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80 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS VOL. 60, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2024
[49] G. J. Mendis, T. Randeny, J. Wei, and A. Madanayake, “Deep learning George Shaker (Senior Member, IEEE) is cur-
based Doppler radar for micro UAS detection and classification,” in rently the Lab Director of the Wireless Sensors
Proc. IEEE Mil. Commun. Conf., 2016, pp. 924–929. and Devices Laboratory, University of Waterloo-
[50] AWR1443Boost Evaluation Board. Accessed: 2022. [Online]. Avail- Schlegel Research Institute for Aging, Waterloo,
able: https://www.ti.com/tool/AWR1443BOOST ON, Canada. He is also an (Adjunct + Research)
Professor with the Department of Electrical and
[51] Phantom 3 Standard - DJI. Accessed: 2022. [Online]. Available: Computer Engineering as well as the Depart-
https://www.dji.com/ca/phantom-3-standard ment of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineer-
[52] DCA1000EVM Evaluation Board. Accessed: 2022. [Online]. Avail- ing, University of Waterloo. Previously, he was
able: https://www.ti.com/tool/DCA1000EVM an NSERC Scholar with the Georgia Institute
of Technology. He also held multiple roles with
RIM’s (BlackBerry). With close to 20 years of industrial experience in tech-
Ahmed N. Sayed (Graduate Student Member, nology, and more than 8 years as a faculty member leading projects related
IEEE) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in to the application of wireless sensor systems for healthcare, automotives,
electrical engineering in 2009 and 2015, respec- and unmanned aerial vehicles. He has many design contributions in com-
tively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. mercial products available from startups and multinationals. A sample list
degree in electrical and computer engineering includes Google, COM DEV, Honeywell, Blackberry, Konka, DBJ, Enice,
with the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Spark Tech Labs, China Mobile, TriL, Bionym, Lyngsoe Systems, ON
Canada. Semiconductors, Ecobee, Medella Health, NERV Technologies, Novela,
His research interests include radar detection, Thalmic Labs, North, General Dynamics Land Systems, General Motors,
digital signal processing, radar signal process- Toyota, Maple Lodge Farms, Rogers Communications, and Purolator. He
ing, and machine learning. has authored or coauthored more than 120 publications and more than 35
patents/patent applications.
Prof. Shaker is a recipient of multiple recognitions and awards, including
the IEEE AP-S Best Paper Award (the IEEE AP-S Honorable Mention Best
Omar M. Ramahi (Fellow, IEEE) was born Paper Award (four times to date), the IEEE Antennas and Propagation
in Jerusalem, Palestine. He received the B.S. Graduate Research Award (the IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship, the
(Highest Hons.) degree in mathematics and elec- Electronic Components and Technology Best of Session paper award,
trical and computer engineering from Oregon and the IEEE Sensors most popular paper award. Two papers he coau-
State University, Corvallis, OR, USA, in 1984, thored in IEEE journals were among the top 25 downloaded papers on
and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical IEEEXplore for several consecutive months. He was the supervisor of
and computer engineering from the University the student team winning the third best design contest at IEEE AP-S
of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign, IL, USA, in 2016, coauthor of the ACM MobileHCI 2017 best workshop paper award,
1986 and 1990, respectively. and the 2018 Computer Vision Conference Imaging Best Paper Award.
He was with Digital Equipment Corporation He coreceived with his students several research recognitions including
(presently HP), MA, USA, where he was a mem- the NSERC Top Science Research Award 2019, IEEE APS HM paper
ber of the Alpha Server Product Development Group. In 2000, he joined award 2019, Biotec top demo award 2019, arXiv top downloaded paper
the Faculty of the James Clark School of Engineering, University of (medical device category) 2019, Velocity fund 2020, NASA Tech Briefs
Maryland at College Park, MD, USA, as an Assistant Professor and later HM Award (medical device category) 2020, UW Concept 2021, U.K.
as a tenured Associate Professor, and was also a Faculty Member of Dragons Canadian Competition 2021, CMC Nano 2021, COIL COLAB
the CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Center. He is currently a 2022, and Wiley Engineering Reports top downloaded paper for 2022.
Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Waterloo, ON, Canada. He has authored and coauthored
more than 500 journal and conference technical articles on topics related
to the electromagnetic phenomena and computational techniques. He has
coauthored the book EMI/EMC Computational Modeling Handbook (first
edition: Kluwer, 1998, Second Ed: Springer-Verlag, 2001, Japanese edition
published in 2005).
Dr. Ramahi was the recipient of the 2004 University of Maryland Pi
Tau Sigma Purple Cam Shaft Award, the Excellent Paper Award from the
2004 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Sendai,
Japan, and the 2010 University of Waterloo Award for Excellence in
Graduate Supervision. In 2012, he was also a recipient of the IEEE EMC
Society Technical Achievement Award. In 2022, he was the winner of the
2022 University of Waterloo Engineering Research Excellence Award.

SAYED ET AL.: MACHINE LEARNING FOR UAV CLASSIFICATION EMPLOYING MECHANICAL CONTROL INFORMATION 81