Advanced Receiver for Distressed Emitter Localization (ARDEL)

A majority of U.S. adults own a cell phone and are inclined to use it in emergency situations to call for assistance. Unfortunately, in areas where the density of cell towers is low, such as in rural and off-shore environments, the ability of the wireless network to geolocate the origin of the wireless signal is poor to non-existent. Under the proposed effort, Toyon Research Corporation will develop a system to geolocate the source of radio-frequency (RF) emissions from distressed cellular calls. The system will not disrupt other users and will not require personal information to detect, identify and geolocate the emitter of interest. The proposed emitter localization system has a number of potential commercial applications including search and rescue operations and interference localization, such as in the case of GPS/GNSS jammers. During the Phase I effort, Toyon will develop the system architecture and demonstrate the performance of the system using a modular navigation and communication transceiver developed on prior contracts. Lessons learned from the demonstration will be incorporated into a preliminary prototype design, which will be finalized, built and demonstrated during the follow-on Phase II effort. The emitter locator will include one or more cooperative sensor nodes that communicate with each other without disrupting the wireless network. Each sensor node will be small, lightweight, portable and durable. A mission planning software package will be included to enable the operators to visualize and understand the expected performance of the system during operation.