Multipath Mitigation via Synthetic Aperture Beamforming

S. Draganov, M. Harlacher, L. Haas

Abstract:	Multipath propagation is one of the major error sources for radio navigation systems. While many new applications require ever more precise user positioning in urban and indoor settings, existing receivers are especially vulnerable to severe multipath, which is often present in such environments. This paper investigates synthetic aperture navigation and ranging techniques to combat the adverse effects of multipath. A deeply integrated RF receiver and an inertial measurement unit produce an estimate for the user trajectory, which makes it possible to form a synthetic aperture from the user’s motion using a single element antenna. In turn, using the synthetic aperture opens the door to applying modern direction finding and beamforming methods. These signal processing schemes are able to differentiate between the line of sight and multipath signals, as they often arrive from different directions. The line of sight signal component can be extracted in the presence of strong multipath, and its delay can be accurately estimated.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2009) September 22 - 25, 2009 Savannah International Convention Center Savannah, GA
Pages:	1707 - 1715
Cite this article:	Draganov, S., Harlacher, M., Haas, L., "Multipath Mitigation via Synthetic Aperture Beamforming," Proceedings of the 22nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2009), Savannah, GA, September 2009, pp. 1707-1715.
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