A quadrant-based range location method

The location of an emitter can be determined from the intersection of a set of circles when the range measurements from a number of spatially separated sensors are available. Although many closed-form solutions have been developed, they are not optimum. In this paper, we show the nonlinear problem by using the quadrant information on the areal coordinates of the source position. Compared with the system of the rectangular coordinates, the system of real coordinates usually has more quadrants when a triangle or a polygon is used to serve as the coordinate frame. Using this enhanced quadrant information; the position estimate could be improved by solving a set of linear equations. Simulated results are also provided to show that the position estimate is improved drastically.