Yet another TOA estimation technique for IR-UWB

Abstract

Purpose – The paper aims to propose a new method for estimating the time of arrival (TOA) of ultra-wideband (UWB) signals under IEEE 802.15.4a multipath channel model. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed approach is based on a proportionality test and consists in finding out whether two autoregressive (AR) processes, modeling two frames, are proportional or not. The latter operation uses a distance to measure the proportionality between the two AR processes. Findings – The developed technique may be used in two ways, sample-by-sample or block-by-block, according to the required ranging accuracy. It is important to note that the method offers flexibility between the computational load and the needed estimation accuracy. Moreover, the proposed method uses a threshold that is derived analytically according to a preset false alarm probability. Practical implications – Simulation experiments are conducted to assess the performance of the new TOA estimation algorithm. Thereby, the comparison is done against the well-known CLEAN algorithm for a sample-by-sample based TOA estimation and against three energy detector based receiver algorithms. The obtained results highlight the effectiveness of the developed approach. Originality/value – The developed TOA estimation algorithm is completely different from other techniques in the literature, and it is based on a proportionality test between two sliding frames. These latter are modeled by two AR processes. Then a distance measure is used to check whether or not the power spectral densities are proportional.