High precision passive radar algorithm

The work is devoted to the study of the location determination algorithm for an arbitrary number of receiving stations using the differential-rangefinder method. The algorithm uses all possible Time Differences of Arrival (TDOAs) of the signal from the radio emission source to the receiving stations. In this case, the concept of a “reference” receiving station is excluded, relative to which the range differences are estimated in the classical method, and the signal TDOAs from the source between all possible pairs of receiving stations are used. It is shown that for a given number of receiving stations, the transition from the algorithm with one “reference” station to the proposed algorithm can significantly increase the accuracy of determining the location. Moreover, with an increase in the number of receiving stations, the efficiency of such a transition increases. In addition, for both methods, it has been demonstrated that adding a new receiving station improves positioning accuracy, but the gain decreases with the increasing number of stations. The work can find application in various monitoring systems, since it can significantly increase the accuracy of location determination only through algorithmic solutions, without costly replacement of equipment.