Determining the location of an object during environmental monitoring in conditions of limited possibilities for the use of satellite positioning

The article is devoted to the problem of determining the location of an object in space within the framework of various tasks of monitoring the state of the environment, in conditions of inaccessibility of traditional satellite positioning. As part of the task of monitoring the state of the environment, monitoring agricultural territories and observing the atmosphere, the use of traditional satellite navigation systems in many cases is not available. To solve it, it is proposed to use passive methods for determining the location of the object. To increase their reliability in solving environmental monitoring problems, a new algorithm was developed for the difference-ranging method by increasing the number of used differences of arrival times. The difference between the signal arrival times may be less than 0.02 us. Using the algorithm allowed to abandon the use of the reference station and move on to differences in arrival times between all pairs of stations. In this case, the accuracy of determining the position of the object increases by 20 - 45%. The error in determining the position of the object does not exceed 1 m. This value allows the operational search of weather balloons and other equipment for environmental monitoring. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.