A fast TDOA and VDOA estimation method of the wideband frequency hopping signal

Abstract

In the mobile multi-station passive positioning scenario, the carrier frequency hopping of the wideband frequency hopping communication signal will produce a changing Doppler frequency shift. Therefore, it is not possible to directly estimate the Doppler frequency difference of the observed signal containing multiple pulses. In this case, only the time difference and frequency difference of the single-hop signal can be estimated, but the accuracy is low. The existing methods often need the carrier frequency of each FH pulse signal as a priori information, and the high computational complexity of the two-dimensional search method of the time difference and frequency difference is difficult to overcome. Aiming at the above problems, a fast and high-precision estimation algorithm for the time difference of arrival and velocity difference of wideband frequency hopping signals is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the wideband frequency hopping signal is segmented in the time domain with multiple pulses as the unit, the signal model of time-varying time difference is established, and the time difference of each short-time segment is estimated by the generalized cross-correlation algorithm. The estimated values of the initial time difference and Doppler velocity difference can be worked out by least squares fitting of the time difference sequence obtained from the single pulse estimation. Finally, taking the Link16 data link signal as an example, the simulation experiment of the proposed method is conducted, which verifies the correctness and performance superiority of the algorithm.