Estimation of time difference of arrivals for multiple arms 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. This paper suggests a new method of TDOA estimation for multiple unknown sources of ARMA type and additive noise that is correlated between the sensors. The appropriate model for non-integer delays is considered, and a theoretical formula that needs only the receiver cross-spectra and the source poles for the TDOA determination is derived. The poles are estimated by a least squares techique, and a sample correlation is applied to evaluate the receiver cross-spectra. Results from simulations illustrate the performance of the algorithm.