GES source localization based on discrete-time position and single range measurements

This paper addresses the problem of estimating the position of a drifting source relative to an agent, in 3-D, based on discrete-time range measurements from the agent to the source, in addition to the position of the agent itself. An augmented nonlinear system is derived, in discrete-time, that can be regarded as linear for observability and observer design purposes. The analysis of the observability follows and sufficient conditions are derived, based directly on the trajectory of the agent. A Kalman filter with globally exponentially stable error dynamics is proposed and simulation results are presented that illustrate the achievable performance with the proposed solution.