A structure for the combined reduction of bias and variance in estimating source location and motion

A structure is presented for passive estimation of range, bearing as well as velocity of a source from a linear array. It uses a quasi-optimal post-processor of the time delays, which are obtained from a generalized correlator with finite observation time. The post-processor ultimately maps the sequential time delay observations onto invariant source trajectory parameters over which smoothing is performed to reduce, jointly, the variance and the bias in the estimate of the source kinematics. The present approach remains viable for moving sources at long ranges, off-broadside source directions and high time delay variances. Analysis and simulation results are presented to justify its usefulness under the stated stringent conditions. Review of and comparison to existing approaches are made to highlight the viability of present approach in the estimation of source trajectory.