A Joint TDOA-PDOA Localization Approach Using Particle Swarm Optimization

Estimating the location of a target is essential for many applications such as asset tracking, navigation, and data communications. Time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) based localization has the main advantage that it does not require synchronization between the transmitting and the receiving sides. Phase-difference-of-arrival (PDOA) provides additional information that can be leveraged to enhance localization performance. The combination of TDOA and PDOA for localization has not been reported in the literature. In this letter, we propose a novel approach that incorporates both TDOA and PDOA to achieve improved position estimation. In the proposed approach, an initial location estimate is obtained by optimizing a TDOA cost function. Next, a PDOA, or a hybrid TDOA-PDOA cost function is optimized using a particle swarm optimizer to obtain the final location estimate. Simulation results show that the proposed approach sufficiently, and justifiably, improves localization performance relative to pure TDOA methods.