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I have multiple fixed points to which I know the distance. I do not know the position of these points before hand. I will know my absolution position (using other means) at the start, but afterwords I want to use the distances from the static points to determine the changes in my location. This seems like something that should be possible, but all the examples of trilateration I have found seem to involve distances from known location points. Is this possible, and if so how?

There is an old question about this that never had an accepted (or fully explained) answer. Trilateration with unknown fixed points. I am asking again hoping that fresh eyes (or a fresh look) might be able to provide more insight into this.

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jp36
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  • What part of the sole answer do you find to be not “fully explained”? You can formulate a system of equations, and solving one such is a common-enough task so I wouldn't expect any explanation on that. I guess I'd add a note about how you can never determine the origin or orientation of the coordinate system from these relative measurements, just as I indicated in a comment to that answer. But apart from that, I don't know what I would write different. I'm inclined to consider your question a duplicate, at least as it stands now. – MvG Oct 14 '14 at 07:29
  • What I don't understand is how to formulate that system of equations. I don't know what system of equations can be created given n and k that will result in me knowing the change in my location, which involves knowing the distance and heading I traveled relative to the last measurement (or x,y). – jp36 Oct 14 '14 at 17:28
  • I wrote a second answer to that question and hope this will make things clearer. I still consider your post a duplicate of the one you referenced but I value the fact that you mentioned this other post at all. – MvG Oct 14 '14 at 19:55
  • Thank you for adding the extra information to the other question, I will continue any conversation there. Sorry about the duplicate, I didn't know any other way to bring the topic up again since the old answer wasn't enough to help with my limited understanding. Should I delete this or just let it be marked as duplicate? – jp36 Oct 14 '14 at 20:35
  • Wait for it to be closed as duplicate. – MvG Oct 15 '14 at 08:16

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