Performance Analysis of Hyperbolic Multilateration Using Circular Error Probability

Precise positioning and tracking capability of any object or radio source has now become a necessity for many industries and a number of sectors like automation, medicine, defence, transport etc. Hyperbolic Multilateration or Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) positioning is one of the many techniques widely used to achieve this end. However, a few problems that concern any designer include the choice of number of sensors and reference sensor, the geometry of sensors, effect of source position on position error accuracy etc Accuracy measures like Circular Error Probable (CEP) provide a solution to this dilemma. CEP may be used to obtain the entire position accuracy profile of an area for any chosen geometry of sensors. This paper explains the significance of CEP and also illustrates the CEP profile for two chosen sensor geometries deployed in unknown source location using TDOA method.