Patent ID: 8548177

Claim:
A method for source tracking comprising: a. receiving a signal from a moving signal source at each of a plurality of sensors in a sensor array; b. determining a data set of time series comprising data points representing when the signal was received at each of the plurality of sensors; c. receiving an identification of a set of times that correspond to a first event recorded by all of the plurality of sensors; and d. approximating a path of the moving signal source by estimating the location of each event subsequent to the first event by a path-approximation unit, wherein approximating the path of the moving signal source by estimating the location of each event subsequent to the first event comprises: 1. determining an amount of red-shifted data points and an amount of blue-shifted data points, 2. creating a window in each time series centered on the first event time and with a time duration defined by software or by the user, 3. estimating an amount of Doppler shift present in each window relative to the most red-shifted data points, 4. resizing the windows such that the windows containing the most blue-shifted data points shrink the most, but the window containing the most red-shifted data points does not change in size, 5. resampling the data points in each resized window such that the number of data points in each window is the same, wherein the presence of Doppler shifting is removed from the data points in the windows, 6. dividing the plurality of sensors into sensor pairs, 7. cross-correlating the data points in all windows of step 4 to estimate time differences of arrival of the signal between each pair of sensors, 8. moving all windows of step 4 forward in time by a step size defined by software or by the user, wherein the centers of the windows have time differences that reflect the result of step 7, 9. repeating steps 3 through 8 until the end of the data set is reached, 10. repeating steps 3 through 7 again, moving the windows backward in time starting from the initial event times from step 2, until the beginning of the data set is reached, and 11. using the time differences estimated at each iteration of the windows, estimating a location of the moving signal source at different points along the moving signal source path.