Assessing The Accuracy Of Hyperbolic Multilateration Systems

In this paper, we investigate a number of hyperbolic equation-solving techniques for signal of opportunity (SOOP)-based positioning. The Taylor series iterative method begins with an initial guess and improves the estimate per iteration by determining a local linear least-square (LS) solution. With a set of time difference of arrival (TDOA) estimates, the method estimates the position location deviations. In contrast, the closed form method is a non-iterative solution to the hyperbolic position estimation problem, which is capable of achieving optimum performance for arbitrarily placed receivers. The height compensation method starts with a three-dimensional (3D) position fix using TDOA measurements, computes two-dimensional (2D) ranges using the estimated position, and re-solves the 2D solution by eliminating the height component, which is more susceptible to range errors. Last, we use height information from a digital terrain elevation database (DTED) to assist the conventional hyperbolic equation-solving methods, thus minimizing the position errors in height. This paper compares the accuracy of the aforementioned hyperbolic positioning techniques based on simulation.