detecting distance of UAV's

[harry667788]

• At what distance can an approaching UAV be detected with an Alfa 036ACM WiFi adapter/antenna?

• Is only the current position of the UAV shown on the Nzyme Connect map, or the entire flight route?

Thank you!

[remete618]

The detection range with an Alfa AWUS036ACM depends heavily on the drone's WiFi transmission power and the environment, but here are practical numbers:

Range estimates: with a directional antenna (Yagi or panel) replacing the stock omni: 500m to 1km+ , but like in urban environments with obstacles: cut those numbers by 40-60%

The limiting factor isn't the adapter's receive sensitivity (which is decent at ~-92dBm), it's the drone's transmit power, which for consumer drones running on 2.4GHz is typically 20dBm (100mW). At 5.8GHz, range drops significantly due to higher path loss.

If you need actual flight route reconstruction, you'd want either multiple Nzyme sensors for triangulation,
acoustic tracking (complementary to WiFi detection for bearing estimation)

[harry667788]

Thank you very much @remete618 for the helpful answers!

->Range estimates: with a directional antenna (Yagi or panel) replacing the stock omni: 500m to 1km+ , but like in urban
->environments with obstacles: cut those numbers by 40-60%
What are your top-rated Yagi or panel antennas and brands?

->If you need actual flight route reconstruction, you'd want either multiple Nzyme sensors for triangulation,
->acoustic tracking (complementary to WiFi detection for bearing estimation)
Did you manage to integrate acoustic tracking (as a complement to WiFi detection for bearing estimation) into nzyme?