Method for the localizing of terrestrial mobile radio from an aircraft

A method of using real-time localization over a communications network, comprising:

• transmitting from a TDMA celluar radiocommunications network;
• intercepting on board an aircraft radioelectric signals coming from terrestrial radioelectric transmitters, belonging to the TDMA cellular radiocommunications network;
• detecting the radioelectric signals by the implementation of a multichannel synchronization to determine various transmission sources;
• computing simultaneously an elevation angle Δ and an azimuth angle θ to instantaneously determine directions of arrival of the radioelectric signals from the determined transmission sources;
• and
• estimating a position of the terrrestrial transmitters by building tracks in geographical areas in which the transmission sources are located.

A device for the real-time localization of terrestrial radioelectric transmitters, comprising:

• an antenna array distributed on an aircraft, and configured to pick up radioelectric signals;
• a multichannel receiver configured to receive output signals from the antenna array and to synchronize received signals;
• a digital processor configured to process the synchronized signals and locate the radioelectric transmitters of the signals picked up;
• a time management system configured to give a temporal reference common to the multichannel receiver and the digital processor;
• and
• a system for the localization and detection of a trim of the aircraft, configured to give the attitude of the aircraft, in an absolute geocentric reference system, to the digital processor.