Direct position determination of narrowband radio frequency transmitters | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

Direct position determination of narrowband radio frequency transmitters


Abstract:

The most common methods for location of communications or radar transmitters are based on measuring a specified parameter such as signal angle of arrival (AOA) or time of...Show More

Abstract:

The most common methods for location of communications or radar transmitters are based on measuring a specified parameter such as signal angle of arrival (AOA) or time of arrival (TOA). The measured parameters are then used to estimate the transmitter location. Since the AOA/TOA measurements are done at each base station separately, without using the constraint that all measurements must correspond to the same transmitter, they are suboptimal. We propose a technique that uses exactly the same data as the common methods, except that the estimation of location is based on exact maximum likelihood, and the location determination is direct. Although there are many stray parameters, including the attenuation coefficients and the signal waveform, the method requires only a two-dimensional search. Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the accuracy is equivalent to AOA, TOA, and their combination for high SNR, while for low SNR, the accuracy of the proposed method is superior.
Published in: IEEE Signal Processing Letters ( Volume: 11, Issue: 5, May 2004)
Page(s): 513 - 516
Date of Publication: 19 April 2004

ISSN Information:


I. Introduction

The PROBLEM of emitter location attracts much interest in the signal processing, vehicular technology, and underwater acoustics literature. Defense-oriented location systems have been reported since World War I. Perhaps the first paper on the mathematics of emitter location, using angle of arrival (AOA), is due to Stansfield [1]. Many other publications followed, including a fine review paper by Torrieri [2]. The papers by Krim and Viberg [3] and Wax [4] are comprehensive review papers on antenna array processing for location by AOA. Recently, Van-Trees [5] published a book that is fully devoted to array processing. Positioning by time-of-arrival (TOA) is well known in radar systems [6], and in underwater acoustics [7]. In underwater acoustics, matched-field processing (MFP) is viewed as a promising procedure for source localization [8]. MFP can be interpreted as the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of location given the observed signal at the output of an array of sensors [8], [9]. Another interpretation of MFP is the well-known beamforming extended to wide-bandwidth signals, nonplanar wave fields, and unknown environmental parameters.

References

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