Multistatic localization error due to receiver positioning errors

This paper is a summary of a study of the effect of receiver position errors on the target localization accuracy of a multistatic sonar. The multistatic active system under examination consists of one or more transmitters and receivers, and the target is localized in the horizontal plane by means of echoes from the transmissions. Two-dimensional propagation of sound, with a constant sound speed, is assumed throughout. A simple analytic approach, implemented and illustrated numerically, is derived for calculating the sensitivity to receiver position error over a specified area. For many of the examples considered, there are considerable regions where target localization errors can be unacceptably large even for highly accurate receiver positions