GSM passive coherent location system: Performance prediction and measurement evaluation

This study describes the processing scheme of the FKIE (Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics) GSM-based passive coherent location (PCL) system, which consists of an antenna and signal processing adapted to the GSM waveform and of target tracking based on multi-hypothesis tracking. To overcome the limitations from a single bistatic transmitter-receiver pair, fusion of the measurements from different geometries is the key component of a GSM PCL system. The authors demonstrate a significant improvement in target position estimation from the tracking process on the basis of real data and theoretical performance bounds. The impact of the transmitter-target-receiver geometry is discussed and the effect of the exploitation of prior context knowledge (e.g. clutter and land maps) on maritime traffic surveillance is shown.