Patent ID: 7423589

Claim:
A method for localizing one or more sources, each source (emitters) being in motion relative to a network of sensors, the method comprising the steps of: separating the sources in order to identify the direction vectors associated with the response of the sensors to a source at a given incidence, said incidence angles varying depending on the position of the sensors network relative to said sources; associating direction vectors a 1m . . . a Km obtained for the m th transmitter and respectively at the instants t 1 . . . t K , are associated during a period Dt in order to separate different sources for each instant t 1 . . . t K , said incidence angles varying depending on the position of the sensors network relative to said sources; wherein the direction vectors a 1m . . . a Km obtained for the mobile sources and respectively for the instants t 1 . . . t K are associated during the period Dt in order to separate the different sources for each instant t 1 . . . t K the position (x m , y m , z m ) of the mobile emitter is directly localized from the direction vectors a 1m . . . a Km associated to a same emitter, one emitter being obtained from the different instants t k ; wherein the associating step comprises: Step ASE-1: Initialization of the process at k=2, Step ASE-2: For 1<m<M determining the indices i(m) in using the relationship d ⁡ ( a k ⁢ ⁢ m , b i ⁡ ( m ) ) = min 1 ≤ i ≤ M ⁢ [ d ⁡ ( a k ⁢ ⁢ m , b i ) ] , the direction vector a k,m and the vectors b i identified at the instant t k+1 for (1<i<M), setting up a function β m (t k )=d(a km , a om ), wherein d(u, v)=1−  u H ⁢ v  2 ( u H ⁢ u ) ⁢ ( v H ⁢ v ) Step ASE-3: For 1<m<M performing the operation a k+1 m =b i(m) , Step ASE-4: Incrementing k←k+1 and if k<K returning to the step ASE-1, Step ASE-5: Starting from the family of instants θ={t 1 < . . . <t K } thus obtained, extracting the instants t i which do not belong to a zone defined by the curve β m (t k ) and a zone of tolerance; where M is the number of transmitters.