Power-level surveillance for an FMCW-based local positioning system

Local positioning systems which are based on the bistatic frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar principle generally evaluate the time of flight (TOF) of signals. However, the FMCW principle also provides the power level (PL) of the received signal, which is often neglected since various unknown parameters must be considered. In this contribution, we present a method which exploits this additional source of information by predicting its value accurately based on the knowledge of the antenna characteristics, hardware parameters, and the estimated position of the measurement transponder (MT). This information can then be used to determine the quality of each PL measurement and to discard data which are obviously corrupted.