Fishing Net Optimization: A Learning Scheme of Optimizing Multi-Lateration Stations in Air-Ground Vehicle Networks

Integrated sensing and communication in 6G, particularly for air-ground surveillance using automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) and multi-lateration (MLAT) systems, is gaining significant research interest. This letter investigates the problem of optimal anchor station selection for tracking aerial vehicles, and proposes a novel heuristic learning scheme termed as fishing net-like optimization (FNO). Specifically, we perform constrained random walk steps on a two-dimensional surface to optimize the initial anchor stations’ parameters. FNO also incorporates with new evaluation strategies and acceleration techniques to accelerate the convergence speed. Experimental results demonstrate that FNO can achieve better selection of the anchor stations, and the accuracy of the chosen MLAT can be improved by ten times or more with the anchors optimization.