Jamming emitter localization with multiple UAVs equipped with smart antennas

This paper presents a wideband jamming emitter localization method based on the fusion of multiple direction-ofarrivals (DOAs) and time-difference-of-arrival(s) (TDOA(s)) obtained from multiple unmanned-aerial-vehicles (UAVs). In this technique, we assume that multiple trajectory controllable UAVs are available and they are equipped with smart antennas to estimate the emitter’s angle (DOA) with respect to themselves. In addition, UAVs communicate with each other to support the estimation of TDOA between pair(s) of UAVs and the emitter. The obtained DOA and TDOA information is fused at one UAV using an extended Kalman filter (EKF) to localize and track the mobile/static jamming emitter. In this method, we use DOA fusion to provide a good initialization of the emitter position to guarantee the EKF’s convergence speed. The emitter localization accuracy is provided by the fusion of TDOAs if three or more UAVs are available. The simulation results show that the localizing-tracking error is less than 15% of the range difference estimation error standard deviation with three UAVs that is accurate enough for jamming emitter destruction.