A Novel Multi-Antenna Based Non-Line-of-Sight Error Mitigating Algorithm

The Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) propagation effect has been considered as one of the most important issues in the location estimation especially in urban environment with serious blocking of direct paths. In this paper, we develop a new algorithm to mitigate the NLOS errors in location estimation by distributed multi-antenna. Utilizing the relativity between TOAs obtained from different antennas in a multi-antenna array, the positions of scatterers that cause the NLOS propagation, as well as the distances between mobile stations (MSs) and scatterers, are estimated. Then with appropriate location algorithm, the locations of MSs are obtained with information of scatterers. Simulation results show that this algorithm can mitigate NLOS errors effectively and improve the performance of TOA/TDOA based location algorithm in NLOS environment significantly.