High Precision Ranging Using Temporal TDOA and Multipath Tracking in the Absence of Direct Path

Ferit Ozan Akgul and Kaveh Pahlavan

Abstract: Indoor positioning systems employing high bandwidth (up to UWB) TOA methods have attracted considerable attention recently owing to their potential for precise localization and tracking of personnel or assets inside buildings where the GPS systems fail to operate. However, these systems suffer heavily due to severe multipath in indoor areas, resulting in large positioning errors since the direct path path cannot be detected due to obstructions. This in turn leads to a condition that we call the undetected-direct-path condition. An effective solution would be to exploit other multipath components to aid in the localization by using TDOA of consecutive locations on the receiver’s pathway, given that a specific path can be tracked using AOA information. Here TDOA will represent the difference of TOA on a certain path between two adjacent sampling locations. We show how this method can be applied together with the use of sectored antennas to aid in the TOA-based precise UWB ranging.
Published in: Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2007)
September 25 - 28, 2007
Fort Worth Convention Center
Fort Worth, TX
Pages: 1413 - 1417
Cite this article: Akgul, Ferit Ozan, Pahlavan, Kaveh, "High Precision Ranging Using Temporal TDOA and Multipath Tracking in the Absence of Direct Path," Proceedings of the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2007), Fort Worth, TX, September 2007, pp. 1413-1417.
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