Calibration Signal-Assisted Emitter Localization Under Sensor Position Uncertainty

The uncertainty of sensor position significantly compromises the accuracy of source localization within the direct position determination (DPD) framework. This article explores the use of an external calibrator that emits a calibration signal with a known position to mitigate the impact of sensor position uncertainty on localization accuracy. By utilizing the calibration signal, we develop a refined Gibbs sampling algorithm as the initial step to effectively address the high-dimensional optimization problem associated with sensor position calibration. In the second step, we account for measurement noise and estimation uncertainties in the calibrated sensor positions and propose a revised DPD method, which demonstrates greater resilience to sensor position uncertainty compared to existing methods. We also derive the Cramer–Rao lower bound for emitter position under scenarios both with and without an external calibrator. Numerical simulations are performed to evaluate the performance of our proposed algorithms against several benchmark methods, demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach.