Optimal sensor deployment for 3D AOA target localization

This paper investigates the problem of how to improve angle-of-arrival (AOA) target localization accuracy by finding an optimal AOA sensor deployment strategy in 3D space. Under the assumption of constant absolute elevation angles for the sensors, a novel and simple optimal sensor deployment criterion is proposed based on minimizing the trace of inverse Fisher information matrix. Our analysis shows that when sensor elevation angles equal ±42.2869° and twice of azimuth angles have equal angular distribution with uniform distance from the target and equal noise covariance, the lowest mean squared error is achieved. Besides, with more sensors placed closer to the target, a lower mean squared error is attained. Simulation examples are presented to verify the effectiveness of the developed optimality criterion.