Joint estimation of scan rate and emitter location in scan based passive localization systems

Scan based localization is a passive localization method applicable to scanning emitters such as radars with mechanically rotating antennas. The scan based location estimate requires prior knowledge of the emitter scan rate. This paper develops joint estimation techniques for the scan rate and the emitter location using scan time measurements at N = 4 separate receivers, doing away with separate estimation of the scan rate. The joint estimators are based on geometric, pseudolinear and maximum likelihood estimation. The latter two are also applicable to the general geolocation problem where N > 4. The performance of the proposed estimators is demonstrated by way of computer simulations.