Homing and Docking Algorithms for Circular Transmission and Receiver Arrays

Abstract

Homing and docking are two major components in the navigation of UAV’s and UUV’s. It involves the estimation of the six-element displacement vector based on the received signals, where three of the vector elements are associated with the translational displacement and the other three are for the rotation vector. The homing procedure is based on the estimation of the rotation vector with far-field approximations. In the docking range, the displacement estimation becomes more sensitive and critical. Far-field approximation-based algorithms are no longer effective, and high-precision techniques become important and need to be developed. In this paper, we examine and model the multi-dimensional displacement estimation for circular arrays. It allows us to accurately assess the performance as well as the limitation of the algorithms, with respect to various system parameters such as the size of the arrays, range distance, transmitted waveforms, and signal processing algorithms.