Patent ID: 7907089

Claim:
A method of locating one or more transmitters on the basis of an array of sensors moving with respect to the transmitters, comprising at least the following steps for an m-th transmitter of the transmitters: determining a direction vector â km corresponding to the response of the array of sensors to a source with incidence (θ, Δ) as a function of the incidence parameters θ, Δ, and of an unknown parameter ρ related to the distortion of the phases on the sensors, transforming the direction vector so as to eliminate the unknown parameter ρ, into a transformed direction vector, using the transformed direction vector to obtain the position of the transmitter using a maximized locating criterion; wherein the transformation step comprises at least the following steps: choosing a reference instant i, and constructing the transformed direction vector ĉ′ km whose components correspond to the ratio of the components between the given instant k and the instant i c ^ k ⁢ ⁢ m ′ = [ a ^ k ⁢ ⁢ m ⁡ ( 1 ) / a ^ im ⁡ ( 1 ) ⋮ a ^ k ⁢ ⁢ m ⁡ ( n ) / a ^ im ⁡ ( n ) ⋮ a ^ k ⁢ ⁢ m ⁡ ( N ) / a ^ im ⁡ ( N ) ] , â im is the direction vector at the reference instant i.