Ranging with ultrawide bandwidth signals in multipath environments

Abstract

Over the coming decades, high-definition situationally-aware networks have the potential to create revolutionary applications in the social, scientific, commercial, and military sectors. Ultrawide bandwidth (UWB) technology is a viable candidate for enabling accurate localization capabilities through time-of-arrival (TOA)-based ranging techniques. These techniques exploit the fine delay resolution property of UWB signals by estimating the TOA of the first signal path. Exploiting the full capabilities of UWB TOA estimation can be challenging, especially when operating in harsh propagation environments, since the direct path may not exist or it may not be the strongest. In this paper, we first give an overview of ranging techniques together with the primary sources of TOA error (including propagation effects, clock drift, and interference). We then describe fundamental TOA bounds (such as the Cramer-Rao bound and the tighter Ziv-Zakai bound) in both ideal and multipath environments. These bounds serve as useful benchmarks in assessing the performance of TOA estimation techniques. We also explore practical low-complexity TOA estimation techniques and analyze their performance in the presence of multipath and interference using IEEE 802.15.4a channel models as well as experimental data measured in indoor residential environments.