Geolocation of Fast-Moving Objects From Satellite-Based Angle-of-Arrival Measurements

Recently, satellite-based systems have been introduced that utilize angle-of-arrival (AOA) measurements to geo-locate objects of interest. In the previous work, we considered the application of nonlinear optimization to AoA-based geolocation to these systems. This previous work, however, assumed that all noise sources were independent. In the case of fast-moving objects, however, there is a significant source of error due to the propagation time inherent in satellite-based observation of objects due to the difference between the location of the object when it is observed by a satellite, and the location of the object when it emitted the signal that is being measured. This introduces a systematic error into the system that cannot be resolved by the system proposed by Burchett et al. In this paper, we extend our prior work to account for the time-delay inherent in satellite-based geolocation systems, making this system accurate for fast-movers as well as fixed or slow-moving objects. Results demonstrating significant improvement in geolocation performance both in terms of accuracy and estimated error bounds are presented.