Measurement Association for Emitter Geolocation with Two UAVs

Abstract

Geolocation with three or more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on time-difference-of-arrivals (TDOA) is possible but has implementation problems including UAV trajectory optimization, measurement association, and communication bandwidth limitations. The complexity of each of these problems is manageable with a simpler system of two netted UAVs that processes multiple TDOA measurements collected over time. Based on TDOA measurements and given a dense pulse environment, a pulse detected at one UAV may correlate with multiple pulses at the other UAV, giving rise to a TDOA measurement set consisting of true and false TDOA measurements at each stage. These measurements are then converted to 2-D measurement components using Gaussian sum approximation. A tracking algorithm that uses integrated track splitting and track pruning and employs a bank of Kalman filters is used to track the emitter. Results from this tracker are superior to those from an unscented Kalman filter, a traditional answer to tracking in the presence of nonlinearities.