Accuracy of 3D Ground Radio Station Location by a Single Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as a Function of an Increasing Number of Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) Measurements

The article presents the results of simulation studies assessing the potential value of increasing the accuracy of radio signal source localization as a function of the increasing number of measures performed by a simple UAV (omnidirectional antenna, low flight altitude) in the Rice channel conditions and 3D space. The comparison was made for Range-Based localization methods such as Min–Max, Multilateration, and Nonlinear Regression with an additional assessment of the impact of Kalman filtering. It is estimated that, depending on the adopted localization method, thanks to the use of a large number of measurements performed by the UAV, one can count on a 2 to 6 times increase in localization accuracy in relation to the variant limited by measurements. The above is a good prognosis for the multi-task use of COTS UAV.