Sensor Localization Using Acoustic Transient Signal Sources with Known Positions

Acoustic sensors can be localized using multiple fixed transient sound sources with known positions or a mobile transient sound source moved to different known positions. The sensor positions are estimated by measuring the differential times-of-arrival of the signal emitted by each source at different sensor pairs, and then minimizing the sum of the squared deviations of the differential times-of-arrival from their predicted values over all sensor pairs and all source positions. The localization accuracy of the method is evaluated with real data using the bootstrap technique for a land-based wide-aperture linear array consisting of six widely separated microphones located on the ground and an underwater wide-aperture planar array consisting of four widely spaced hydrophones deployed in Sydney Harbour. Results are presented for the cases where two and three sensor elements of the microphone array are localized at a time for various intersensor spacings and for the case where all four sensor elements of the hydrophone array are localized simultaneously.