Passive Geolocation with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles using TDOA-AOA Measurement Processing

Abstract

Actual trends in current passive geolocation system development includes cooperation of flying segment based on receiver stations aboard Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with terrestrial segment including stationary ground receiver stations. Existing accuracy results achieves the order of tens and hundreds of meters in optimistic Line of Sight (LOS) conditions, however the problem of radio emission sources positioning with UAVs is especially relevant for search and rescue operations in heterogeneous terrain, when separate primary measurements obtained, for example, after reflections, could lead to a significant error. One possible way to improve the accuracy of positioning in such conditions is to use aerial passive geolocation based on UAVs with joint processing of Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival (AOA) primary measurements. The contribution of the current investigation is the development of mathematical model for positioning of radio emission sources with UAVs using TDOA-AOA measurement processing and performance evaluation of hybrid measurement processing with handling AOA noise.