Acoustic source localization in a network of Doppler shift sensors

It is well-known that the motion of an acoustic source can be estimated from Doppler shift observations. It is however not obvious how to design a sensor network to efficiently deliver the localization service. In this work a rather simplistic motion model is proposed that is aimed at sensor networks with realistic numbers of sensor nodes. It is also described how to efficiently solve the associated least squares optimization problem by Gauss-Newton variable projection techniques, and how to initiate the numerical search from simple features extracted from the observed frequency series. The methods are demonstrated on real data by determining the distance to a passing propeller-driven aircraft and by localizing an all-terrain vehicle. It is concluded that the processing components included are fairly mature for practical implementations in sensor networks.