Firstly, the performance of the several typical positioning algorithms is analyzed in principle, computational quantity, positioning error and ambiguity, and the comparison results show that the Taylor algorithm is the best. Secondly, it is proved that the positioning performance of the time difference of arrival(TDOA) algorithm is better than the time sum of arrival(TSOA) algorithm in the quantity and distribution of the ambiguity points. Finally, changing the location parameters,such as the base station number, layout, target height, measurement error of the time sum and the length of baseline, it is proved that the location performance of the TSOA algorithm is better than that of the TDOA algorithm according to the geometric dilution of precision (GDOP). Simulation results show that the location performance of the TSOA algorithm is better than that of the TDOA algorithm.