Evaporation Duct Height Estimation and Source Localization From Field Measurements at an Array of Radio Receivers

Remote sensing of the atmospheric refractivity structure using signal strength measurements from a single emitter to an array of radio receivers has been proposed as a promising way for refractivity estimation. As a complement to the pioneers´ published works, this paper focuses on addressing the problem of simultaneously estimating the evaporation duct height and localizing the source´s position. The problem is organized as a multi-parameter optimization issue and genetic algorithm is adopted to search for the optimal solution from various trial parameters. The performance is determined via numerical simulations and mainly evaluated as a function of: (1) the geometry of the receiver array; (2) the transmitting frequency; and (3) the noise in the measurements.