Netted sensors for higher-dimensionality performance

Many sensors that are in service today were designed for locating objects in two dimensions. Air-traffic-control (ATC) radars, for example, are often circular-scan radars that can provide range and azimuth measurements, which can be used to locate an airliner's latitude and longitude. Radars such as these typically do not have the capability to locate an object in three dimensions, thereby providing information regarding the object's altitude. Knowledge of aircrafts' altitudes, however, is highly desirable given the demands put on ATC by the crowded skies of modern aviation. Previous work has shown how two-dimensional target-location accuracy can be improved within the same dimensionality by combining multiple sensors. More recent work is revealing how, by netting multiple two-dimensional sensors such as circular-scan radars, three-dimensional object-location can be achieved. In this paper the concept of networking multiple two-dimensional sensors will be described. A scenario including multiple two-dimensional sensors will be presented, and analytic performance results will be provided for various sensor combinations and geometries.