A system and method for increasing the accuracy of time delay estimates of
signals propagating through an environment. The system includes one or
more sensors for receiving a plurality of signals, and a time delay
estimator for measuring time delays between multiple pairs of signals. At
least some of the multiple pairs of signals are received and measured at
different points in time. The system further includes a data analyzer for
analyzing time delay estimation data, for generating a statistical
distribution of time delay estimates from the data, and for calculating a
statistical estimate of time delay from the distribution. By increasing
the number of signals employed by the system, the accuracy of the time
delay estimation is increased. Further, by calculating the median or the
mode of the statistical distribution, noise tolerance is improved.