How to solve 3 TDOA equations with 3 variables x,y,z

I have a set of equations which looks like that, how to find x,y,z by coding while all other variables are known?

Answer 1

[Torsten]

Code for symbolic solution:

syms x y z 
x1 = 0.60; y1 = 0.00; z1 = 0.70;
x2 = 0.20; y2 = 1.30; z2 = 0.70;
x3 = 0.80; y3 = 1.05; z3 = 0.20;
x4 = 0.00; y4 = 0.25; z4 = 0.20;
a = 0.19845; b = 0.08791; c = 0.11492;
eqn1 = a==sqrt((x-x2)^2+(y-y2)^2+(z-z2)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
eqn2 = b==sqrt((x-x3)^2+(y-y3)^2+(z-z3)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
eqn3 = c==sqrt((x-x4)^2+(y-y4)^2+(z-z4)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
S = solve([eqn1,eqn2,eqn3],[x,y,z])
xnum = double(S.x)
ynum = double(S.y)
znum = double(S.z)

Code for fsolve:

X0 = [1,1,1];
x1 = 0.60; y1 = 0.00; z1 = 0.70;
x2 = 0.20; y2 = 1.30; z2 = 0.70;
x3 = 0.80; y3 = 1.05; z3 = 0.20;
x4 = 0.00; y4 = 0.25; z4 = 0.20;
a = 0.19845; b = 0.08791; c = 0.11492;
fun=@(x,y,z)[a-(sqrt((x-x2)^2+(y-y2)^2+(z-z2)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2)), ...
             b-(sqrt((x-x3)^2+(y-y3)^2+(z-z3)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2)), ...
             c-(sqrt((x-x4)^2+(y-y4)^2+(z-z4)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2))];
X = fsolve(@(x)fun(x(1),x(2),x(3)),X0);
x = X(1)
y = X(2)
z = X(3)

Answer 2

[Torsten]

If there are no specialized methods to solve the TDOA equations (did you take a look into the literature ?), I suggest trying

syms x1 x2 x3 x4 y1 y2 y3 y4 z1 z2 z3 z4 x y z a b c
eqn1 = a==sqrt((x-x2)^2+(y-y2)^2+(z-z2)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
eqn2 = b==sqrt((x-x3)^2+(y-y3)^2+(z-z3)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
eqn3 = c==sqrt((x-x4)^2+(y-y4)^2+(z-z4)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
S = solve([eqn1,eqn2,eqn3],[x,y,z])

If this is not successful, use "fsolve".

[Ebrahim Abdullah Ahmed Albabakri]

it's a non-linear equation and requires Newton-Raphson or Taylor series, because there's errors in signal capturing and so on. But I found no help on that regard.

[Torsten]

Then follow the two ways I gave you.

[Ebrahim Abdullah Ahmed Albabakri]

This is the output of solve

S = 

  struct with fields:

    x: [1×1 sym]
    y: [1×1 sym]
    z: [1×1 sym]

fsolve shows an error

    Error using fsolve (line 180)
FSOLVE requires the following inputs to be of data type double: 'X0'.

and This is the code

syms x1 x2 x3 x4 y1 y2 y3 y4 z1 z2 z3 z4 x y z a b c

x1 = 0.60; y1 = 0.00; z1 = 0.70;
x2 = 0.20; y2 = 1.30; z2 = 0.70;
x3 = 0.80; y3 = 1.05; z3 = 0.20;
x4 = 0.00; y4 = 0.25; z4 = 0.20;
a = 0.19845; b = 0.08791; c = 0.11492;

eqn1 = a==sqrt((x-x2)^2+(y-y2)^2+(z-z2)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
eqn2 = b==sqrt((x-x3)^2+(y-y3)^2+(z-z3)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);
eqn3 = c==sqrt((x-x4)^2+(y-y4)^2+(z-z4)^2) - sqrt((x-x1)^2+(y-y1)^2+(z-z1)^2);

S = solve([eqn1,eqn2,eqn3],[x,y,z])