Short range radio locator system

Claim 1

A radio location system, comprising: a roving transmitter with an unknown position and providing for periodic bursts of wireless radio frequency (RF) carrier transmissions at a first repetition rate; a plurality of receivers with known locations and providing for the reception of said bursts of RF carrier transmissions according to a sample gate input for each; local oscillator generation means connected to provide a single sample gate signal to each of said sample gate inputs at a second repetition rate that is different than said first repetition rate, wherein said first and second repetition rates are in phase once each "n" cycles of said first repetition rate; digital output means connected to each of the receivers for binary signaling TRUE/FALSE of whether the reception of one of said bursts of said RF carrier transmissions arrived simultaneously with one of said sample gate signals; and computer means for storing representations which of the plurality of receivers and what particular cycles "0 . . . n" of said first repetition rate provided a TRUE binary signal connected from the digital output means, and for computing a relative difference in the time-of-flight of said RF carrier transmissions to each of the plurality of receivers from said stored representations, and for computing a position estimate of the roving transmitter from said relative difference and said known positions of each of the plurality of receivers.