Netted sensors for higher-dimensionality performance

Many sensors that are in service today were designed for locating objects in two dimensions. Air-traffic-control (ATC) radars, for example, are often circular-scan radars that can provide range and azimuth measurements, which can be used to locate an airliner´s latitude and longitude. Radars such as these typically do not have the capability to locate an object in three dimensions, thereby providing information regarding the object´s altitude. Knowledge of aircrafts´ altitudes, however, is highly desirable given the demands put on ATC by the crowded skies of modern aviation. Previous work has shown how two-dimensional target-location accuracy can be improved within the same dimensionality by combining multiple sensors. More recent work is revealing how, by netting multiple two-dimensional sensors such as circular-scan radars, three-dimensional object-location can be achieved. In this paper the concept of networking multiple two-dimensional sensors will be described. A scenario including multiple two-dimensional sensors will be presented, and analytic performance results will be provided for various sensor combinations and geometries.