3-D jammer localization using out-of-plane multipath

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to establish how a moving emitter, such as a jammer, can be localized by a passive receiver through the use of out-of-plane multipath signals reflected by the terrain. This is a novel localization technique that assumes no a priori knowledge of the location of the multipath sources. The emitter parameters of range, heading, velocity, and altitude are estimated by exploiting the correlation between the direct-path signal and the delayed and Doppler modulated signals. Based on an assumption that the bistatic clutter is fundamentally homogeneous, the maximum likelihood estimator is designed and found to have the structure of a time-varying FIR filter. The Cramer-Rao lower bounds are calculated and used to study the estimator performance. The proposed estimator is successfully demonstrated using field data collected at White Sands Missile Range during the DARPA/Navy Mountaintop program.