A New Bearings-only Passive Source Localization Algorithm in 3D Space

Abstract To solve the sensitivity of the least square target/source localization method based on direction-of-arrival estimations to the elevation angle error in 3D spaces, a new least square method is proposed. Tangent function of elevation angle in the existing least squares method is substituted by cosine and sine function to decrease the impact of elevation angle estimation error and to increase robustness of the method. Furthermore, the performance of the modified least squares method is analyzed by numerical simulations. The simulation results show that the modified least squares method has better robustness over bearing estimation errors and perturbation of the sensor array nodes than the ordinary least squares method. Keywords: localization, least squares, sensitivity, bearing estimation