Demonstration of Automated Foreign Object Debris Detection System for 93.1 GHz Millimeter-Wave Surveillance Radar Utilizing Corner Reflectors

Any foreign material found on the airfield is known as Foreign Object Debris (FOD) which can threaten the aircraft and airport operations. Detecting objects of various types and sizes is quite challenging due to the complex structure of the runway pavement and weak target echoes in long-distance monitoring. Several existing FOD radar system detection methods have short effective range and longer system throughput. However, in this paper, we propose an integrated millimeter-wave FOD radar detection to improve small detection targets under long-range conditions of over 500 m for three measurement areas during clear weather conditions. The experiment was carried out at an international airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The results validate the effectiveness of the superior performance of the integrated millimeter-wave FOD detection system for long-range detection by evaluating the average Radar Cross Section (RCS) value, average detection probability, and percentage of detection per rotation for 9-interval point.