High-Precision Time Delay Estimation Based on Closed-Form Offset Compensation

To improve the estimation accuracy,a novel time delay estimation(TDE)method based on the closed-form offset compensation is proposed.Firstly,we use the generalized cross-correlation with phase transform(GCC-PHAT)method to obtain the initial TDE.Secondly,a signal model using normalized cross spectrum is established,and the noise subspace is extracted by eigenvalue decomposition(EVD)of covariance matrix.Using the orthogonal relation between the steering vector and the noise subspace,the first-order Taylor expansion is carried out on the steering vector reconstructed by the initial TDE.Finally,the offsets are compensated via simple least squares(LS).Compared to other state-of-the-art methods,the proposed method significantly reduces the computational complexity and achieves better estimation performance.Experiments on both simulation and real-world data verify the efficiency of the proposed approach.

Performance Evaluation of Three-Dimensional UWB Real-Time Locating Auto-Positioning System for Fire Rescue

Fire rescue challenges and solutions have evolved from straightfor-ward plane rescue to encompass 3D space due to the rise of high-rise city buildings.Hence,this study facilitates a system with quick and simplified on-site launching and generates real-time location data,enabling fire rescuers to arrive at the intended spot faster and correctly for effective and precise rescue.Auto-positioning with step-by-step instructions is proposed when launching the locating system,while no extra measuring instrument like Total Station(TS)is needed.Real-time location tracking is provided via a 3D space real-time locating system(RTLS)constructed using Ultra-wide Bandwidth technology(UWB),which requires electromagnetic waves to pass through concrete walls.A hybrid weighted least squares with a time difference of arrival(WLS/TDOA)positioning method is proposed to address real path-tracking issues in 3D space and to meet RTLS requirements for quick computing in real-world applications.The 3D WLS/TDOA algorithm is theoretically constructed with the Cramer-Rao lower bound(CRLB).The computing complexity is reduced to the lower bound for embedded hardware to directly compute the time differential of the arriving signals using the time-to-digital converter(TDC).The results of the experiments show that the errors are controlled when the positioning algorithm is applied in various complicated situations to fulfill the requirements of engineering applications.The statistical analysis of the data reveals that the proposed UWB RTLS auto-positioning system can track target tags with an accuracy of 0.20 m.

Triangles Technique for Time and Location Finding of the Lightning Discharge in Spherical Model of the Earth

The spherical model of time and location calculation of the lightning discharge is given. The calculations are made by means of radio signals detection by sensors of the distributed network. The full solution of a problem of lightning discharge cloud-ground type location for three sensors is given. Based on this task the lightning location method for a network of sensors was developed. By means of computational experiments, the analysis of accuracy of the model depending on radio signals detection accuracy at observing stations was done.

TOA positioning algorithm of LBL system for underwater target based on PSO

For the underwater long baseline(LBL)positioning systems,the traditional distance intersection algorithm simplifies the sound speed to a constant,and calculates the underwa-ter target position parameters with a nonlinear iteration.However,due to the complex underwater environment,the sound speed changes with time and space,and then the acoustic propagation path is actually a curve,which inevitably causes some errors to the traditional distance intersection positioning algorithm.To reduce the position error caused by the uncertain underwater sound speed,a new time of arrival(TOA)intersection underwater positioning algorithm of LBL system is proposed.Firstly,combined with the vertical layered model of the underwater sound speed,an implicit positioning model of TOA intersection is constructed through the constant gradient acoustic ray tracing.And then an optimization function based on the overall TOA residual square sum is advanced to solve the position parameters for the underwater target.Moreover,the particle swarm optimization(PSO)algorithm is replaced with the tra-ditional nonlinear least square method to optimize the implicit positioning model of TOA intersection.Compared with the traditional distance intersection positioning model,the TOA intersec-tion positioning model is more suitable for the engineering practice and the optimization algorithm is more effective.Simulation results show that the proposed methods in this paper can effectively improve the positioning accuracy for the underwater target.

Aviation multi-station collaborative detecting based on time-frequency correlation of data-link

As an important application research topic of the intelligent aviation multi-station, collaborative detecting must overcome the problem of scouting measurement with status of 'fragmentation', and the NP-hardness problem of matching association between target and measurement in the process of scouting to data-link, which has complicated technical architecture of network construction. In this paper, taking advantage of cooperation mechanism on signal level in the aviation multi-station sympathetic network, a method of obtaining target time difference of arrival (TDOA) measurement using multi-station collaborative detecting based on time-frequency association is proposed. The method can not only achieve matching between target and its measurement, but also obtain TDOA measurement by further evolutionary transaction through refreshing sequential pulse time of arrival (TOA) measurement matrix for matching and correlating. Simulation results show that the accuracy of TDOA measurement has significant superiority over TOA, and detection probability of false TDOA measurement introduced by noise and fake measurement can be reduced effectively.

Hybrid TDOA/FDOA and track optimization of UAV swarm based on A-optimality

The source location based on the hybrid time difference of arrival(TDOA)/frequency difference of arrival(FDOA) is a basic problem in wireless sensor networks, and the layout of sensors in the hybrid TDOA/FDOA positioning will greatly affect the accuracy of positioning. Using unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) as base stations, by optimizing the trajectory of the UAV swarm, an optimal positioning configuration is formed to improve the accuracy of the target position and velocity estimation. In this paper, a hybrid TDOA/FDOA positioning model is first established, and the positioning accuracy of the hybrid TDOA/FDOA under different positioning configurations and different measurement errors is simulated by the geometric dilution of precision(GDOP) factor. Second, the Cramer-Rao lower bound(CRLB) matrix of hybrid TDOA/FDOA location under different moving states of the target is derived theoretically, the objective function of the track optimization is obtained, and the track of the UAV swarm is optimized in real time. The simulation results show that the track optimization effectively improves the accuracy of the target position and velocity estimation.

Three-Dimensional Sound Source Location Algorithm for Subsea Leakage Using Hydrophone

Leakages from subsea oil and gas equipment cause substantial economic losses and damage to marine ecosystem,so it is essential to locate the source of the leak.However,due to the complexity and variability of the marine environment,the signals collected by hydrophone contain a variety of noises,which makes it challenging to extract useful signals for localization.To solve this problem,a hydrophone denoising algorithm is proposed based on variational modal decomposition(VMD)with grey wolf optimization.First,the average envelope entropy is used as the fitness function of the grey wolf optimizer to find the optimal solution for the parameters K andα.Afterward,the VMD algorithm decomposes the original signal parameters to obtain the intrinsic mode functions(IMFs).Subsequently,the number of interrelationships between each IMF and the original signal was calculated,the threshold value was set,and the noise signal was removed to calculate the time difference using the valid signal obtained by reconstruction.Finally,the arrival time difference is used to locate the origin of the leak.The localization accuracy of the method in finding leaks is investigated experimentally by constructing a simulated leak test rig,and the effectiveness and feasibility of the method are verified.

A PSO microseismic localization method based on group waves' time difference information

Aiming at the lower microseismic localization accuracy in underground shallow distributed burst point localization based on time difference of arriva（TDOA）,this paper presents a method for microseismic localization based on group waves’ time difference information Firstly, extract the time difference corresponding to direct P wavers dominant frequency by utilizing its propagation characteristics. Secondly, construct TDOA model with non-prediction velocity and identify objective function of particle swarm optimization （PSO）. Afterwards, construct the initial particle swarm by using time difference information Finally, search the localization results in optimal solution space. The results of experimental verification show that the microseismic localization method proposed in this paper effectively enhances the localization accuracy of microseismic explosion source with positioning error less than 50 cm, which can satisfy the localization requirements of shallow burst point and has definite value for engineering application in underground space positioning field.

Performance analysis of an indoor UWB ranging system

To evaluate the ranging performance of impulse radio ultra wideband （IR-UWB） signals, an experiment is performed in a typical indoor environment. In order to mitigate the ranging error caused by theoretical algorithm and practical circuits, one way-time difference of the arrival （OW-TDOA） ranging method and corresponding approaches are proposed and carried out according to the structure of UWB transceivers. Generalized maximum likelihood （GML） estimator based on energy detection is applied for the time of arrival estimation. The obtained results show that this UWB ranging system can achieve a relative high ranging accuracy in a multipath environment （e.g. about 5 cm at ranges up to 6 m）, which is practical and meaningful for many sensor applications.

Localization in modified polar representation: hybrid measurements and closed-form solution

Classical localization methods use Cartesian or Polar coordinates, which require a priori range information to determine whether to estimate position or to only find bearings. The modified polar representation (MPR) unifies near-field and farfield models, alleviating the thresholding effect. Current localization methods in MPR based on the angle of arrival (AOA) and time difference of arrival (TDOA) measurements resort to semidefinite relaxation (SDR) and Gauss-Newton iteration, which are computationally complex and face the possible diverge problem. This paper formulates a pseudo linear equation between the measurements and the unknown MPR position,which leads to a closed-form solution for the hybrid TDOA-AOA localization problem, namely hybrid constrained optimization(HCO). HCO attains Cramér-Rao bound (CRB)-level accuracy for mild Gaussian noise. Compared with the existing closed-form solutions for the hybrid TDOA-AOA case, HCO provides comparable performance to the hybrid generalized trust region subproblem (HGTRS) solution and is better than the hybrid successive unconstrained minimization (HSUM) solution in large noise region. Its computational complexity is lower than that of HGTRS. Simulations validate the performance of HCO achieves the CRB that the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) attains if the noise is small, but the MLE deviates from CRB earlier.

High Performance of a TOA-TDOA Hybrid GSM Location System for Intelligent Transportation Systems

This paper illustrates the performance of a mobile positioning technique applicable to a GSM network.An experimental system of a network-based GSM positioning for ITS has been proposed, and the hybrid TOA-TDOA method based on GSM signaling has been analyzed and used. The performance of the proposed system is showed through simulations in urban and suburban environments. The accuracy for 67% mobile stations is 70 m in urban and 120 m in suburban. The accuracy, coverage and network load of positioning system are also analyzed.

TDOA and track optimization of UAV swarm based on D-optimality

To solve the problem of time difference of arrival(TDOA)positioning and tracking of targets by the unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV)swarm in future air combat,this paper adopts the TDOA positioning method and uses time difference sensors of the UAV swarm to locate target radiation sources.Firstly,a TDOA model for the target is set up for the UAV swarm under the condition that the error variance varies with the received signal-to-noise ratio.The accuracy of the positioning error is analyzed by geometric dilution of precision(GDOP).The D-optimality criterion of the positioning model is theoretically derived.The target is positioned and settled,and the maximum value of the Fisher information matrix determinant is used as the optimization objective function to optimize the track of the UAV in real time.Simulation results show that the track optimization improves the positioning accuracy and stability of the UAV swarm to the target.

Passive Localization of Signal Source Based on UAVs in Complex Environment

For the influence caused by multipath fading and non-line-of-sight(NLOS)transmission,it is challenging to accurately localize a moving signal source in complex environment by using the wireless sensor network(WSN)on the ground.In this paper,we establish a special WSN in the sky to address this challenge,where each sensor is loaded on an unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)and the operation center of all the UAVs is fixed on the ground.Based on the analyzing of the optimal distribution and the position error calibration of all the sensors,we formulate the localization scheme to estimate the position of the target source,which combines the time difference of arrival(TDOA)method and the frequency difference of arrival(FDOA)method.Then by employing the semidefinite programming approach,we accurately obtain the position and velocity of the signal source.In the simulation,the validity of the proposed method is verified through the performance comparison.

COMPARISON OF TDOA LOCATION ALGORITHMS WITH DIRECT SOLUTION METHOD

For Time Difference Of Arrival(TDOA) location based on multi-ground stations scene,two direct solution methods are proposed to solve the target position in TDOA location.Therein,the solving methods are realized in the rectangular and polar coordinates.On the condition of rectangular coordinates,first of all,it solves the radial range between the target and reference station,then cal-culates the location of the target.In the case of polar coordinates,the azimuth between the target and reference station is solved first,then the radial range between the target and reference station is figured out,finally the location of the target is obtained.Simultaneously,the simulation and comparison analysis are given in detail,and show that the polar solving method has the better fuzzy performance than that of rectangular coordinate.

Novel method for radial velocity difference estimation of moving targets with wideband signals

For the frequency difference of arrival （FDOA） esti-mation in passive location, this paper transforms the frequency difference estimation into the radial velocity difference estimation, which is difficult to achieve a high accuracy due to the mismatch between the sampling period and the pulse repetition interval. The proposed algorithm firstly estimates the point-in-time that each pulse arrives at two receivers accurately. Secondly two time of arrival （TOA） sequences are subtracted. And final y the radial ve-locity difference of a target relative to two stations with the least square method is estimated. This algorithm only needs accurate estimation of the time delay between pulses and is not influenced by parameters such as frequency and modulation mode. It avoids transmitting a large amount of data between two stations in real time. Simulation results corroborate that the performance is bet-ter than the arithmetic average of the Cramer-Rao lower bound （CRLB） for monopulse under suitable conditions.

Measurement of X-ray photon energy and arrival time using a silicon drift detector

Detecting the X-ray emission of pulsars and obtaining the photons＇ time of arrival are the foundational steps in autonomous navigation via X-ray pulsar measurement.The precision of a pulse＇s time of arrival is mainly determined by the precision of photon arrival time measurement.In this work,a silicon drift detector is used to measure photon energy and arrival time.The measurement system consists of a signal detector,a processing unit,a signal acquisition unit and a data receiving unit.This system acquires the energy resolution and arrival time information of photons.In particular,background noise with different energies disturbs pulse profile forming,the system can also achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio profile.Ground test results show that this system can be applied in autonomous navigation based on X-ray pulsar measurement.

Positioning performance analysis of the time sum of arrival algorithm with error features

The theoretical positioning accuracy of multilateration(MLAT) with the time difference of arrival(TDOA) algorithm is very high. However, there are some problems in practical applications. Here we analyze the location performance of the time sum of arrival(TSOA) algorithm from the root mean square error(RMSE) and geometric dilution of precision(GDOP) in additive white Gaussian noise(AWGN) environment. The TSOA localization model is constructed. Using it, the distribution of location ambiguity region is presented with 4-base stations. And then, the location performance analysis is started from the 4-base stations with calculating the RMSE and GDOP variation. Subsequently, when the location parameters are changed in number of base stations, base station layout and so on, the performance changing patterns of the TSOA location algorithm are shown. So, the TSOA location characteristics and performance are revealed. From the RMSE and GDOP state changing trend, the anti-noise performance and robustness of the TSOA localization algorithm are proved. The TSOA anti-noise performance will be used for reducing the blind-zone and the false location rate of MLAT systems.

Max-Min Adaptive Ant Colony Optimization Approach to Multi-UAVs Coordinated Trajectory Replanning in Dynamic and Uncertain Environments

Multiple Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (multi-UAVs) coordinated trajectory replanning is one of the most complicated global optimum problems in multi-UAVs coordinated control. Based on the construction of the basic model of multi-UAVs coordinated trajectory replanning, which includes problem description, threat modeling, constraint conditions, coordinated function and coordination mechanism, a novel Max-Min adaptive Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) approach is presented in detail. In view of the characteristics of multi-UAVs coordinated trajectory replanning in dynamic and uncertain environments, the minimum and maximum pheromone trails in ACO are set to enhance the searching capability, and the point pheromone is adopted to achieve the collision avoidance between UAVs at the trajectory planner layer. Considering the simultaneous arrival and the air-space collision avoidance, an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) is decided first. Then the trajectory and flight velocity of each UAV are determined. Simulation experiments are performed under the complicated combating environment containing some static threats and popup threats. The results demonstrate the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Hybrid ToA and IMU indoor localization system by various algorithms

In this paper, we integrate inertial navigation system (INS) with wireless sensor network (WSN) to enhance the accuracy of indoor localization. Inertial measurement unit (IMU), the core of the INS, measures the accelerated and angular rotated speed of moving objects. Meanwhile, the ranges from the object to beacons, which are sensor nodes with known coordinates, are collected by time of arrival (ToA) approach. These messages are simultaneously collected and transmitted to the terminal. At the terminal, we set up the state transition models and observation models. According to them, several recursive Bayesian algorithms are applied to producing position estimations. As shown in the experiments, all of three algorithms do not require constant moving speed and perform better than standalone ToA system or standalone IMU system. And within them, two algorithms can be applied for the tracking on any path which is not restricted by the requirement that the trajectory between the positions at two consecutive time steps is a straight line.

Review of X-ray pulsar spacecraft autonomous navigation

This article provides a review on X-ray pulsar-based navigation(XNAV).The review starts with the basic concept of XNAV,and briefly introduces the past,present and future projects concerning XNAV.This paper focuses on the advances of the key techniques supporting XNAV,including the navigation pulsar database,the X-ray detection system,and the pulse time of arrival estimation.Moreover,the methods to improve the estimation performance of XNAV are reviewed.Finally,some remarks on the future development of XNAV are provided.