Hybrid Positioning Scheme Based on Satellite and Aeronautical Relay for the Battlefield

In this paper1, we propose an aerospace relay-based positioning scheme for regional positioning in the battlefield where a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is not available because of signal jamming or blocking. In the proposed scheme, aeronautical nodes and satellites, called aerospace nodes, are used to relay a navigation signal broadcast from ground reference stations. The user receives these relayed signals and estimates the positions of the aeronautical nodes and its own using the arrival time differences and arrival times of relayed signal. However, the satellite position is difficult to determine because of the geometric distribution of the reference stations. To solve this problem, we assume that orbit determination data can be used in the estimation of the user´s position. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can guarantee reasonable accuracy over a wide area with a small number of aerospace nodes. Thus, the proposed positioning scheme can be applied for tactical purposes.