Comparison of least squares and absolute value methods in Ae/MS source location: A case study

Abstract

An extensive study on the calibrated acoustic emission/microseismic (AE/MS) data by the author shows that the absolute value method often provides the more accurate result than the least squares method. This paper, through the study of the distribution of station residuals, demonstrates that this is primarily because the absolute value method has the better ability to retain the residuals to the stations where the main errors actually occur while the least squares method tends to smooth the residuals to other stations. In AE/MS source location the number of stations is usually small and the major errors are often associated with few stations. Using the absolute value method has the better chance to identify these stations and, therefore, to achieve the better source location accuracy.