Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural Network

Over the past few years, drones have been utilized in a wide range of applications. However, the illegal operation of drones may pose a series of security risks to sensitive areas such as airports and military bases. Hence, it is vital to develop an effective method of identifying drones to address...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yuanhua Fu, Zhiming He
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-09-01
Series:Drones
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/8/9/511
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1850261174119038976
author Yuanhua Fu
Zhiming He
author_facet Yuanhua Fu
Zhiming He
author_sort Yuanhua Fu
collection DOAJ
description Over the past few years, drones have been utilized in a wide range of applications. However, the illegal operation of drones may pose a series of security risks to sensitive areas such as airports and military bases. Hence, it is vital to develop an effective method of identifying drones to address the above issues. Existing drone classification methods based on radio frequency (RF) signals have low accuracy or a high computational cost. In this paper, we propose a novel RF signal image representation scheme that incorporates a convolutional neural network (CNN), named the frequency domain Gramian Angular Field with a CNN (FDGAF-CNN), to perform drone classification. Specifically, we first compute the time–frequency spectrum of raw RF signals based on short-time Fourier transform (STFT). Then, the 1D frequency spectrum series is encoded as 2D images using a modified GAF transform. Moreover, to further improve the recognition performance, the images obtained from different channels are fused to serve as the input of a CNN classifier. Finally, numerous experiments were conducted on the two available open-source DroneRF and DroneRFa datasets. The experimental results show that the proposed FDGAF-CNN can achieve a relatively high classification accuracy of 98.72% and 98.67% on the above two datasets, respectively, confirming the effectiveness and generalization ability of the proposed method.
format Article
id doaj-art-dfd4a40dd1084e31a6d3a7ed2dd5e76f
institution OA Journals
issn 2504-446X
language English
publishDate 2024-09-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Drones
spelling doaj-art-dfd4a40dd1084e31a6d3a7ed2dd5e76f2025-08-20T01:55:30ZengMDPI AGDrones2504-446X2024-09-018951110.3390/drones8090511Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural NetworkYuanhua Fu0Zhiming He1School of Automation Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, ChinaInstitute of Electronic and Information Engineering of UESTC in Guangdong, Dongguan 523808, ChinaOver the past few years, drones have been utilized in a wide range of applications. However, the illegal operation of drones may pose a series of security risks to sensitive areas such as airports and military bases. Hence, it is vital to develop an effective method of identifying drones to address the above issues. Existing drone classification methods based on radio frequency (RF) signals have low accuracy or a high computational cost. In this paper, we propose a novel RF signal image representation scheme that incorporates a convolutional neural network (CNN), named the frequency domain Gramian Angular Field with a CNN (FDGAF-CNN), to perform drone classification. Specifically, we first compute the time–frequency spectrum of raw RF signals based on short-time Fourier transform (STFT). Then, the 1D frequency spectrum series is encoded as 2D images using a modified GAF transform. Moreover, to further improve the recognition performance, the images obtained from different channels are fused to serve as the input of a CNN classifier. Finally, numerous experiments were conducted on the two available open-source DroneRF and DroneRFa datasets. The experimental results show that the proposed FDGAF-CNN can achieve a relatively high classification accuracy of 98.72% and 98.67% on the above two datasets, respectively, confirming the effectiveness and generalization ability of the proposed method.https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/8/9/511drone classificationRF signal image representationfrequency domain Gramian Angular FieldCNN
spellingShingle Yuanhua Fu
Zhiming He
Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural Network
Drones
drone classification
RF signal image representation
frequency domain Gramian Angular Field
CNN
title Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural Network
title_full Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural Network
title_fullStr Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural Network
title_full_unstemmed Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural Network
title_short Radio Frequency Signal-Based Drone Classification with Frequency Domain Gramian Angular Field and Convolutional Neural Network
title_sort radio frequency signal based drone classification with frequency domain gramian angular field and convolutional neural network
topic drone classification
RF signal image representation
frequency domain Gramian Angular Field
CNN
url https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/8/9/511
work_keys_str_mv AT yuanhuafu radiofrequencysignalbaseddroneclassificationwithfrequencydomaingramianangularfieldandconvolutionalneuralnetwork
AT zhiminghe radiofrequencysignalbaseddroneclassificationwithfrequencydomaingramianangularfieldandconvolutionalneuralnetwork