12-3 Ranging by local positioning systems (LPS) 203
X
0
= 48565.2699 Y
0
= 6058.9782.
The result of ALESS is almost the same as Gauss-Jacobi’s BLUUE and tra-
ditional least squares solution (see Table 12.13) (the difference between them is
about 3 m m).
12-32 Three-dimensional ranging
12-321 Closed form three-dimensional ranging
Three-dimensional ranging problem differs from the planar ranging in terms of
the number of unknowns to be determined. In the planar case, the interest is
to obtain from the measured distances the two-dimensional coordinates {x
0
, y
0
}
of the unknown station P . For the three-dimensional ranging, the coordinates
{X, Y, Z} have to be derived from the measured distances. Since three coordi-
nates are involved, distances must be measured to at least three known stations
for the solution to be determined. If the stations observed are more than three,
the case is an overdetermined one. The main task involved is the determination
of the unknown position of a station given distance me asurements from unknown
station P ∈ E
3
, to three known stations P
i
∈ E
3
| i = 1, 2, 3. In general, the three-
dimensional closed form ranging problem can be formulated as follows: Given
distance measurements from an unknown station P ∈ E
3
to a minimum of three
known stations P
i
∈ E
3
| i = 1, 2, 3, determine the position {X, Y, Z} of the un-
known station P ∈ E
3
(see e.g., Fig. 13.4). From the three nonlinear Pythagoras
P
2
P
3
S
3
P
S
2
S
31
ψ
12
ψ
23
P
1
S
1
S
12
S
23
Figure 12.13. Tetrahedron: three-dimensional distance and space angle observations
distance observation equations (12.53) in Solution 12.5, two equations with three
unknowns are derived. Equation (12.53) is expanded in the form given by (12.54)
and differenced to give (12.55) with the quadratic terms
X
2
, Y
2
, Z
2
eliminated.
Collecting all the known terms of (12.55) to the right-hand-side and those relating
to the unknowns (i.e., a and b) on the left-hand-side leads to (12.57). T he solution
of the unknown terms {X, Y, Z} now involves solving (12.56), which has two equa-
tions with three unknowns. Equation (12.56) is similar to (12.4) on p. 177 which
was considered in the case of GPS pseudo-range. Four approaches are considered