2-Dimensional position error bias analysis of an angle of arrival based target locating system

Abstract

An angle of arrival (AOA) based locating system determines the location of an emitting target using its emission detected at spatially deployed ground station (GS) with an angulation algorithm. The position estimation (PE) accuracy of the system depends on several factors one of which is the approach to the development of the angulation algorithm. For passive target locating, the closed-form angulation algorithm is used and has been known to introduce bias in the PE process. In this paper, a bias analysis of the closed-form angulation algorithm is carried out to determine its percentage in the overall position mean square error (MSE). The analysis is carried out using a three-GS triangular configuration at some randomly selected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drone locations. Monte Carlo simulation result based on 200 realizations shows that the bias error introduced by the angulation algorithm in the overall position MSE is about 64%. With the knowledge of the bias percentage, the actual locations of the UAV drones within the AOA-based locating system coverage can be determined.