Analysis of sniper localization for mobile asynchronous sensors

Abstract

In this work we analyze the performance of several approaches to sniper localization in a network of mobile sensors. Mobility increases the complexity of calibration (i.e., self localization, orientation, and time synchronization) in a network of sensors. The sniper localization approaches studied here rely on time-difference of arrival (TDOA) measurements of the muzzle blast and shock wave from multiple, distributed single-sensor nodes. Although these approaches eliminate the need for self-orienting, node position calibration and time synchronization are still persistent problems. We analyze the influence of geometry and the sensitivity to time synchronization and node location uncertainties. We provide a Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) for location and bullet trajectory estimator errors for each respective approach. When the TDOA is taken as the difference between the muzzle blast and shock wave arrival times, the resulting localization performance is independent of time synchronization and is less affected by geometry compared to other approaches.