Passive Drone Localization Using LTE Signals

Drones raise significant privacy and security threats, by intruding into the airspace of private properties or unauthorized regions. Being able to detect and localize the encroaching drones is essential to build geofencing systems to prevent drone misuse. While most existing approaches focus on detecting and localizing active drones, passive drones that do not emit signals are particularly challenging to localize, without requiring advanced hardware. In this work, we propose a novel, low-cost passive drone localization approach, by leveraging opportunistic environmental RF signals (e.g., LTE or WiFi) that reflect off the target drone, with only a single wireless receiver. We implement a prototype system on a USRP-device based testbed, with standard LTE signals emitted by multiple distributed transmitters, and conduct experiments on top of a campus building to evaluate its performance. We also perform a drone detection range analysis to extrapolate the real-world applicability of our scheme.