New Radio Compliant Resilient Distributed Positioning Networks

Brian G. Agee

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	A new aspect of Resilient Distributed Positioning Networks (RDPN), referred to here as New Radio (NR) compliant RDPN, is introduced and demonstrated. The aspect is fully compliant with, the NR Release 16+ standard, and uses the same reception, subcarrier demodulation and statistics measurement operations native to NR user equipment (UEs), except for one linear-algebraic operation available in the BLAS. The aspect spoofs 3GPP NR Release 16+ networks to transmit simultaneous, co-channel single-symbol downlink resilient positioning reference signals (DLRPRSs), each of which has subcarrier structure comprising “outer code” Gold sequences, Kronecker-product multiplied by phase-modulated “inner code” scaling factors. The inner codes are transparent to the UEs, and can be varied unpredictably to prevent spoofers form disrupting or corrupting the network. At the UEs, DL-RPRS statistics are measured using RDPN algorithms that provide accuracy governed by their signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) rather than their signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR), without the need for PRS muting, and even in the presence of strong near-far interference between DL-RPRSs. Performance is analyzed for a wideband Frequency Range 3 (FR3) deployment with numerology 2, and a narrowband 10 MHz deployment with numerology 0 and parameters consistent with NextGen 3D PNT. In both deployments, NR-compliant RDPN demonstrates single-symbol cold-start picosecond-level time-of-arrival accuracy, with complexity easily achievable using modern DSP hardware, and 29% lower than conventional matched filtering methods. Each deployment further demonstrates millimeter-level UE positioning accuracy, and picosecond-level UE timing accuracy, using a single statistics upload (< 7 KB/upload). Assuming statistics measurement in one NR slot, and upload to network resources over the subsequent slot, it can therefore provide a cold-start time-to-first-fix (TTFF) and latency of ½ ms and 2 ms, respectively. The approach is well suited for immersive applications where high accuracy and low latency are of paramount importance to network users, e.g., remote telesurgery and airplane cockpit control.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2026 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 26 - 29, 2026 Hyatt Regency Orange County Anaheim, California
Pages:	559 - 575
Cite this article:	Agee, Brian G., "New Radio Compliant Resilient Distributed Positioning Networks," Proceedings of the 2026 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Anaheim, California, January 2026, pp. 559-575. https://doi.org/10.33012/2026.20566
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