Mobile Transmitters Tracking Using Geodetic Models with Multiple Receivers

Ming-Wang Tu and François Patenaude
Communications Research Centre Canada
3701 Carling Avenue, Box 11490, Station H
Ottawa, ON, Canada, K2H 8S2
Tel: 613-998-9262, 613-990-5878, Fax: 613-990-8842
ming-wang.tu@crc.ca, francois.patenaude@crc.ca

Abstract
The paper presents two geodetic models using data from two or three receivers to track the locations of mobile transmitters. To apply the 
techniques, one first has to obtain the estimated angles of arrival (AOAs) and their standard deviations from two or three receivers to 
each transmitter. Once the estimations are obtained, both the Spherical and WGS84 geodetic models are used to process the estimated data 
for each receiver to track the mobile transmitters with a 2R or 3R fixing. The concept of confidence ellipse is applied. The results 
demonstrated the effectiveness of using both geodetic models to track mobile transmitters with a 2R or 3R fixing. In general, both geodetic 
models provide a simple and efficient way to track mobile transmitters. The approach is particularly applicable for receivers using fast 
wideband scanning devices and where items such as AOAs and their instantaneous standard deviations from several channels are reported per 
second.

Index Terms-geodetic model, Spherical, WGS84, fixing, confidence ellipse, GPS, wideband scan.