Performance of Localization and Orientation Using Wideband Antenna Arrays

Accurate position determination is essential for location-aware wireless networks. Time-of-arrival (ToA) and angle-of-arrival (AoA) are two of the most commonly used relative measurements for localizing nodes with unknown positions. In this paper, we consider a localization problem using wideband antenna arrays, which can provide both ToA and AoA information. Since orientation of the array may be unknown, we develop a model for jointly estimating the position and the orientation. Then we apply equivalent Fisher information analysis to derive the squared position and orientation error bounds, the fundamental limits for localization and orientation accuracy, respectively. Our result for localization using wideband antenna arrays reveals a surprising fact that AoA measurements do not improve localization accuracy beyond that achieved by ToA measurements.