Estimation of time difference of arrivals for multiple ARMA sources by a pole decomposition method

Time difference of arrivals (TDOAs) of emitter wavefronts to spatially distributed array of sensors can be used to determine the source location. In this paper, we suggest a new method of TDOA estimation for multiple unknown sources of ARMA type and additive noise that is correlated between the sensors. We first consider the appropriate model for non-integer delays, and then we derive a theoretical formula that needs only the receiver cross-spectra and the source poles for the TDOA determination. The poles are estimated by a least squares technique, and a sample correlation is applied to evaluate the receiver cross-spectra. Results from simulations illustrate the performance of the algorithm.