November 18, 2016
Here's the problem: Your unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is flying through densely populated geography when one of its signal intelligence (SIGINT) systems' radio-frequency (RF) channels detects an emitter signal of interest on a specific frequency, indicating a potential target. It's not enough to know there's a potential threat out there somewhere. You need to know the threat's exact location, and you need to know it in near-real-time. The challenge is that to geolocate a particular emitter, the SIGINT system needs to reassign three or four of its other RF channels, so they can - along with the original channel - perform the interferometry, using TDOA [Time Difference of Arrival] localization techniques, that's needed to zero in on the potential target.