Patent ID: 8165728

Claim:
A cooperative engagement group-position determining system, comprising: a group of at least three cooperative units, wherein each said unit comprises: i) a GPS system for determining a GPS-based position; ii) an inter-distance measurement module for measuring a distance of the unit relative to at least one other unit; and iii) a computer including a computer-readable storage medium encoded with a program algorithm that includes instructions for correcting the GPS-based position based on at least one relative distance between two units to thereby provide an improved GPS-based position for the unit and for the group; and wherein the algorithm comprises an iterative process for i) generating a set of position vectors for each unit to thereby obtain a set of computed positional data and inter-distances for each unit and ii) minimizing a mean square error between the inter-distances and the GPS-based position, thereby correcting the GPS-based position and providing the improved GPS-based position, and repeating steps i) and ii) until a desired degree of convergence and a final converged estimate of positions of units is obtained, and wherein the GPS errors over all units in the cluster are averaged by applying a rigid body transformation of space to the final converged estimate of positions of units to thereby minimize an objective function of the type given by E=D(A (n) , A)+D(B (n) , B)+D(C (n) , C), where A (n) , B (n) and C (n) are the final converged estimate of positions of units.