First Path Detection Using Rank Test in IR UWB Ranging with Energy Detection Receiver under Harsh Environments

To estimate time of arrival (TOA) in impulse radio (IR) ultra wideband (UWB) ranging under harsh environments, the rank test is adopted in the study to detect the first path (FP) in dense multipath with energy detection (ED) receiver. Most TOA estimation methods work well in the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). Actually, the background noise could be non-Gaussian. Moreover, the received signal could be polluted by outliers. In these cases, traditional threshold based methods perform badly, as there may be extraordinary large samples in the output of the receiver. These samples will interfere with the detection of the sample containing the FP. A novel and practical method based on the rank test is proposed to deal with these problems. The FP detection is based on the ranks of the received data samples instead of the samples. Simulations are carried out to demonstrate its effectiveness in the IEEE 802.15.4a channels.