Expressing $\phi$ and $\theta$ in terms of time difference of arrival

geometryphysicspolar coordinatestriangulationtrigonometry

I have an experimental setup consisting of three receivers with known locations $\langle x_i, y_i, z_i \rangle$, and a transmitter with unknown location $\langle x,y,z \rangle$ emitting a signal at known velocity $v$ which arrives at the receivers at known times $t_1, t_2, t_3$.

The time of emission, $t$, is unknown.

I wish to write the angle of arrival (i.e. the transmitter’s polar coordinates, $\phi$ and $\theta$) in terms of the arrival times.


Note that I am not asking how to solve for $\phi$ and θ, nor am I asking how to relate the transmitter's rectangular coordinates to distances from the receivers (i.e. the arrival times) which is, of course, trivial. I merely wish to express $\phi$ and $\theta$ in terms of the $t_i$’s.

This WUSTL student research project comes close to what I’m looking for, but does so only in two dimensions and thus only for θ.

Best Answer

I will assume that the distance to the sender is much larger than the distance between any two receivers. Note that it is not possible to locate the sender exactly with only three receivers, but it is possible to estimate the direction to the sender. (In the planar example from the link there are two sensors at two different locations, so four sensors in total.) Let $v_1, v_2, v_3 \in \mathbb R^3$ be the locations of the receivers and the unit vector $n \in S^2$ the (approximate) direction to the sender. Then for two receivers $v_i, v_j$ the angle $\alpha$ between $n$ and $v_j - v_i$ satisfies $$\frac{\langle n, v_j-v_i \rangle}{\lVert v_j-v_i \rVert} = \cos(\alpha) = \frac{v \, (t_i - t_j)}{\lVert v_i - v_j \rVert}.$$ This leads to the equations $$\langle n, v_j-v_i \rangle = v \, (t_i - t_j)$$ for all pairs of indices $i, j$. Together with $\lVert n \rVert = 1$ this system has two different solutions in general, symmetric by reflection along a normal vector of the plane through $v_1, v_2, v_3$. Then write $n$ in polar coordinates.

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