Patent ID: 7212160

Claim:
A method for locating an object of interest, the method comprising: a) accepting at an observation point, signals emanating from the object; b) determining, for each of the accepted signals, a direction of arrival; c) determining at least two trace-back rays from the observation point using solely the direction of arrival of signals and topographical information; d) determining at least one candidate location at crossings of two or more trace-back rays; e) determining a set of final candidate locations from the determined candidate locations; and f) determining the location of the object of interest using the set of final candidate locations, wherein the act of determining the location of the object of interest using the set of final candidate locations includes i) defining an area of accuracy including at least one candidate location from the set of final candidate locations, and ii) determining the location of the object of interest using the defined area of accuracy, wherein at least two areas of accuracy are defined, and wherein the act of determining the location of the object of interest uses a cardinality of each of the areas of accuracy.