Mechanisms to locate noncooperative transmitters in wireless networks based on residual signal strengths

This paper proposes new mechanisms for locating or tracking a noncooperative and immobile transmitter in wireless communication networks. They rely on a set of trusted cooperative receivers that are able to measure the residual strengths of the received signals from the transmitter. These mechanisms cannot rely on the information provided by the transmitter because the latter can be malicious. The best solution presented in the literature to solve this problem is the hyperbolic position bounding algorithm. Unfortunately, it uses an inaccurate approximation of the difference of two log-normal random variables. When the uncertainty on the effective isotropic radiated power used by the transmitter is high, the hyperbolic position bounding algorithm gives erroneous results. Thus, we propose new algorithms that rely either on better approximations or a geometric interpretation of the problem. We also evaluate the impacts of using multiple independent signals to detect the transmitter. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.