Single Platform Geolocation of Radio Frequency Emitters.

摘要

The focus of this research is on single platform geolocation methods where the position of a single stationary radio frequency emitter is estimated from multiple simulated angle and frequency of arrival measurements taken from a single moving receiver platform. The analysis scenario considered consists of a single 6U CubeSat in low earth orbit receiving radio frequency signals from a stationary emitter located on the surface of the Earth. A multiple element receive antenna array and the multiple signal classification algorithm are used to estimate the angles of arrival of an impinging signal. The maximum likelihood estimator is used to estimate the frequency of arrival of the received signal. Four geolocation algorithms are developed and the accuracy performance is compared to the Cramer-Rao lower bounds through Monte Carlo simulations. Results from a system parameter sensitivity analysis show the combined angle and frequency of arrival geolocation maximum likelihood estimator consistently outperforms the other three geolocation algorithms.