Fast TDOA and FDOA Estimation for Coherent Pulse Signals

Abstract

Time difference of arrival (TDOA) and frequency difference of arrival (FDOA) have been widely used for localizing temporally continuous signals passively. Temporal sparsity of pulse signals makes their TDOA and FDOA estimation processes much different, and computational complexity is a major concern in this area. This paper addresses the problem of fast TDOA and FDOA estimation of pulse signals and focuses mainly on narrowband coherent pulses. By decoupling the effects of TDOA and FDOA in the cost function of localization approximately, we propose a fast coarse TDOA and FDOA estimation method. The estimates are then refined with the cross-ambiguity function (CAF) algorithm within a small TDOA and FDOA neighborhood. In the simulations, the proposed method is demonstrated to have satisfying TDOA and FDOA estimation precisions, and it exceeds existing counterparts largely in computational efficiency.