Patent ID: 6861982

Claim:
A method of determining the position or an emitter, comprising: (a) detecting an emitted signal from the emitter at plural receiver communication devices positioned at different locations, the receiver communication devices determining respective detection times of the emitted signal in respective local time reference frames, wherein at least one of the receiver communication devices is a mobile communication device; (b) determining respective timing differences between the respective local time reference frames of the receiver communication devices and a time reference frame of a reference communication device based on a round-trip signal propagation time determined from exchanging time synchronization signals between the receiver communication devices and the reference communication device; (c) accounting for the respective timing differences between the respective local time reference frames and the time reference frame of the reference communication device such that the respective detection times are determined in a common time reference frame; and (d) determining a position of the emitter from known positions of the receiver communication devices and the respective detection times of the emitted signal.