Patent ID: 7286085

Claim:
A geo-location method for determining the location of an emitter using a long baseline interferometer antenna system including a first antenna element and a second antenna element mounted on a platform, the first and second antenna elements forming a long baseline antenna pair, the method comprising: moving the platform along a measurement path; collecting a series of sets of signal observations from the first and second antenna elements while the platform is moving along the measurement path, each set of signal observations being collected at a particular observation time; processing the signal observations to provide differential phase measurements between the signal observations of the first and second antenna elements; collecting platform position and attitude measurements using an inertial navigation system; interpolating the platform position and attitude measurements to the observation times; collecting measurements of an antenna baseline vector for the long baseline antenna pair using an antenna baseline measurement system; interpolating the measurements of the antenna baseline vector to the observation times; performing a coarse precision emitter location estimate using amplitude difference of arrival measurements; and performing a fine precision emitter location estimate using phase difference of arrival measurements.