This paper focuses on 3D localization of transmitting satellites in low Earth orbits (LEO). 3D localization of transmitters in low orbits is an important emerging problem for many applications such as spectrum management, orbit determination, and backup for GPS failures in orbit. We present StarLoc -- a system to geolocate transmitters in space using a combination of orbital modeling and a new interferometric 3D angle-of-arrival estimation technique. StarLoc's design relies on a unique insight -- the motion of satellites is governed by orbital dynamics and is therefore along a 2D manifold in a 3D space. This reduces the degrees of freedom in satellite motion and allows us to 3D-locate and track a satellite with just three antennas in a 2D plane. We evaluate the system using signal transmissions from 81 Starlink satellites. Our results show that StarLoc can estimate the 3D-angle of a satellite within 0.7 degrees and the orbital range within 5 km. Our dataset and implementation are available at: https://connectedsystemslab.github.io/starloc.

翻译：[translated abstract in Chinese] 本文聚焦于低地球轨道（LEO）发射卫星的三维定位。低轨发射源的三维定位是诸多应用领域中的重要新兴问题，例如频谱管理、轨道确定，以及为在轨GPS失效提供备份。我们提出StarLoc——一种结合轨道建模与新型干涉式三维到达角估计技术的空间发射源地理定位系统。StarLoc的设计基于一个独特洞察：卫星运动受轨道动力学支配，因此其路径本质上是在三维空间中沿一个二维流形展开。这降低了卫星运动的自由度，使我们仅通过二维平面上的三根天线即可实现卫星的三维定位与跟踪。我们利用81颗Starlink卫星的信号传输对系统进行评估。结果表明，StarLoc对卫星三维角度的估计误差不超过0.7度，对轨道距离的估计误差不超过5公里。相关数据集与实现代码可通过以下链接获取：https://connectedsystemslab.github.io/starloc。