High resolution time-of-arrival detection for wireless positioning systems

It is well known that non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and multipath propagation biases time of arrival (TOA) and time difference of arrival (TDOA) estimates, thus reducing accuracy of positioning algorithms. In order to achieve timing error reduction, a high-resolution first arriving path detector from propagation channel estimates is derived based on the minimum variance (MV) estimates and normalized minimum variance (NMV) of the power delay profile. The objective of the paper is to determine the potentialities of this optimal detection scheme within the framework of a realistic wireless positioning system. To this end, the timing measurements obtained are fed to a Kalman tracker which finally determines the position with a high degree of accuracy.