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Localization via Ultra-Wideband Radios: A Look at Positioning Aspects for Future Sensor Networks
Sinan Gezici, Zhi Tian, Georgios B. Biannakis, Hisashi Kobayashi, Andreas F. Molisch, H. Vincent Poor, Zafer Sahinoglu TR2005-072 July 2005
Abstract A look at positioning aspects of future sensor networks.
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine
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Copyright c Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc., 2005 201 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
[Sinan Gezici, Zhi Tian, Georgios B. Giannakis, Hisashi Kobayashi, Andreas F. Molisch, H. Vincent Poor, and Zafer Sahinoglu]
© DIGITALVISION
Localization via Ultra- Wideband Radios
[A look at positioning aspects of future sensor networks]
ltra-wideband (UWB) radios have relative bandwidths larger than 20% or absolute bandwidths of more than 500 MHz. Such wide bandwidths offer a wealth of advan- tages for both communications and radar applications. In both cases, a large band- width improves reliability, as the signal contains different frequency components, which increases the probability that at least some of them can go through or Uaround obstacles. Furthermore, a large absolute bandwidth offers high resolution radars with improved ranging accuracy. For communications, both large relative and large absolute band- width alleviate small-scale fading [1], [2]; furthermore, spreading information over a very large bandwidth decreases the power spectral density, thus reducing interference to other systems, effecting spectrum overlay with legacy radio services, and lowering the probability of interception. UWB radars have been of long-standing interest, as they have been used in military applica- tions for several decades [3], [4]. UWB communications-related applications were introduced only in the early 1990s [5]–[7], but have received wide interest after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed the use of unlicensed UWB communications [8]. The first commercial systems, developed in the context of the IEEE 802.15.3a standardization process, are intended for high data rate, short range personal area networks (PANs) [9]–[11]. Emerging applications of UWB are foreseen for sensor networks as well. Such networks combine low to medium rate communications with positioning capabilities. UWB signaling is especially suitable in this context because it allows centimeter accuracy in ranging, as well as
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [70] JULY 2005 1053-5888/05/$20.00©2005IEEE low-power and low-cost implementation of communication ing schemes discussed in [19], UWB signaling is presented as systems. These features allow a new range of applications, a good candidate for short-range accurate location estimation. including logistics (package tracking), security applications Our purpose is to investigate the positioning problem from a (localizing authorized persons in high-security areas), medical UWB perspective and to present performance bounds and esti- applications (monitoring of patients), family communica- mation algorithms for UWB ranging/positioning. tions/supervision of children, search and rescue (communica- tions with fire fighters, or avalanche/earthquake victims), POSITIONING TECHNIQUES FOR UWB SYSTEMS control of home appliances, and military applications. Locating a node in a wireless system involves the collection of These new possibilities have also been recognized by the location information from radio signals traveling between the IEEE, which has set up a new standardization group 802.15.4a target node and a number of reference nodes. Depending on for the creation of a new physical layer for low data rate commu- the positioning technique, the angle of arrival (AOA), the sig- nications combined with positioning capabilities; UWB technol- nal strength (SS), or time delay information can be used to ogy is a leading candidate for this standard. determine the location of a node [20]. The AOA technique While UWB positioning bears similarities to radar, there are measures the angles between a given node and a number of distinct differences. For example, radar typically relies on a reference nodes to estimate the location, while the SS and stand-alone transmitter/receiver, whereas a sensor network time-based approaches estimate the distance between nodes by combines information from multiple sensor nodes to refine the measuring the energy and the travel time of the received sig- position estimate. On the other hand, a radar can usually choose nal, respectively. We will investigate each approach from the a location where surroundings induce minimal clutter, while a viewpoint of a UWB system. sensor node in a typical application cannot choose its location and must deal with nonideal or even harsh electromagnetic AOA propagation conditions. Finally, sensor networks operate in the An AOA-based positioning technique involves measuring angles presence of multiple-access interference, while radar is typically of the target node seen by reference nodes, which is done by influenced more by narrowband interferers (jammers). means of antenna arrays. To determine the location of a node in UWB communication has been discussed recently in a two-dimensional (2-D) space, it is sufficient to measure the [12]–[15]. In this article, we concentrate on positioning angles of the straight lines that connect the node and two refer- aspects of future sensor networks. Positioning systems can be ence nodes, as shown in Figure 1. divided into three main categories: time-of-arrival, direction- The AOA approach is not suited to UWB positioning for the of-arrival, and signal-strength based systems. We will discuss following reasons. First, use of antenna arrays increases the sys- their individual properties, including fundamental perform- tem cost, annulling the main advantage of a UWB radio ance bounds in the presence of noise and multipath. equipped with low-cost transceivers. More importantly, due to Furthermore, we will describe possible combination strategies the large bandwidth of a UWB signal, the number of paths may that improve the overall performance. be very large, especially in indoor environments. Therefore, In this special section of IEEE Signal Processing accurate angle estimation becomes very challenging due to scat- Magazine, various aspects of signal processing techniques for tering from objects in the environment. Moreover, as we will see positioning and navigation with applications to communica- later, time-based approaches can provide very precise location tion systems are covered. For example, in [16], a number of estimates, and therefore they are better motivated for UWB over positioning techniques are investigated from a system’s point the more costly AOA-based techniques. of view for cellular networks, wireless local area networks (LANs) and ad-hoc sensor networks. The positioning problem SS for cellular networks is further discussed in [17], which con- Relying on a path-loss model, the distance between two siders theoretical bounds and the FCC’s requirements on nodes can be calculated by measuring the energy of the locating emergency calls. The treat- ment in that work spans dynamic and static models for positioning given a set of measurements; it does not, however, consider low-layer issues such as spe- Tc cific timing estimation algorithms. These low-layer issues, such as time of 01 30 23 01 3012 0 23 123 arrival and angle of arrival estimation Tf algorithms, are studied in [18]. Positioning in wireless sensor networks is further investigated in [19], which [FIG1] A sample transmitted signal from a time-hopping impulse radio UWB system. Tf is focuses on cooperative (multihop) the frame time and Tc is the chip interval. The locations of the pulses in the frames are localization. Among the possible signal- determined according to a time-hopping sequence. See [6] for details.
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [71] JULY 2005 received signal at one node. This distance-based technique additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, it can be requires at least three reference nodes to determine the 2- shown that the best achievable accuracy of a distance esti- D location of a given node, using the well-known triangula- mate dˆ derived from TOA estimation satisfies the following tion approach depicted in Figure 2 [20]. To determine the inequality [23], [24]: distance from SS measurements, the characteristics of the channel must be known. Therefore, SS-based positioning c algorithms are very sensitive to the estimation of those Var(dˆ) ≥ √ √ ,(2) π β parameters. 2 2 SNR The Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for a distance estimate dˆ from SS measurements provides the following inequality [21]: where c is the speed of light, SNR is the signal-to-noise ratio, and β is the effective (or root mean square) signal bandwidth defined by ln 10 σ Var(dˆ) ≥ sh d,(1) 10 np ∞ ∞ 1/2 β = f 2|S( f)|2df |S( f)|2df ,(3) −∞ −∞ where d is the distance between the two nodes, np is the path loss factor, and σsh is the standard deviation of the zero mean Gaussian random variable representing the log-normal and S( f ) is the Fourier transform of the transmitted signal. channel shadowing effect. From (1), we observe that the best Unlike SS-based techniques, the accuracy of a time- achievable limit depends on the channel parameters and the based approach can be improved by increasing the SNR or distance between the two nodes. Therefore, the unique char- the effective signal bandwidth. Since UWB signals have acteristic of a UWB signal, namely the very large bandwidth, very large bandwidths, this property allows extremely accu- is not exploited to increase the best achievable accuracy. In rate location estimates using time-based techniques via some cases, however, the target node can be very close to UWB radios. For example, with a receive UWB pulse of 1.5 some reference nodes, such as relay nodes in a sensor net- GHz bandwidth, an accuracy of less than an inch can be work, which can take SS measurements only [22]. In such obtained at SNR = 0 dB. cases, SS measurements can be used in conjunction with Since the achievable accuracy under ideal conditions is very time delay measurements of other reference nodes in a high, clock synchronization between the nodes becomes an hybrid scheme, which can help improve the location estima- important factor affecting TOA estimation accuracy. Hence, tion accuracy. The fundamental limits for such a hybrid clock jitter must be considered in evaluating the accuracy of a scheme are investigated later. UWB positioning system [25]. If there is no synchronization between a given node and TIME-BASED APPROACHES the reference nodes, but there is synchronization among the Time-based positioning techniques rely on measurements reference nodes, then the time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) of travel times of signals between nodes. If two nodes have technique can be employed [20]. In this case, the TDOA of two a common clock, the node receiving the signal can deter- signals traveling between the given node and two reference mine the time of arrival (TOA) of the incoming signal that nodes is estimated, which determines the location of the node is time-stamped by the reference node. For a single-path on a hyperbola, with foci at the two reference nodes. Again a third reference node is needed for localization. In the absence of a common clock between the nodes, round-trip time between two transceiver nodes can be measured to estimate the distance between two nodes [26], [27]. θ In a nutshell, for positioning systems employing UWB 1 radios, time-based schemes provide very good accuracy due to the high time resolution (large bandwidth) of UWB sig- nals. Moreover, they are less costly than the AOA-based schemes, the latter of which is less effective for typical UWB signals experiencing strong scattering. Although it is easier to estimate SS than TOA, the range information obtained from SS measurements is very coarse compared to that θ 2 obtained from the TOA measurements. Due to the inherent suitability and accuracy of time-based approaches for UWB systems, we will focus our discussion on time-based UWB [FIG2] Positioning via the AOA measurement. The blue (dark) positioning in the rest of this article, except for the SS-TOA nodes are the reference nodes. hybrid algorithm.
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [72] JULY 2005 TIME-BASED UWB POSITIONING MULTIPATH PROPAGATION AND MAIN SOURCES OF ERROR In conventional matched filtering or correlation-based TOA esti- Detection and estimation problems associated with a signal mation algorithms, the time at which the matched filter output traveling between nodes have been well studied in radar and peaks, or, the time shift of the template signal that produces the other applications. An optimal estimate of the arrival time is maximum correlation with the received signal is used as the obtained using a matched filter, or equivalently, a bank of TOA estimate. In a narrowband system, however, this value may correlation receivers (see [28]). In the former approach the not be the true TOA since multiple replicas of the transmitted instant at which the filter output attains its peak provides signal, due to multipath propagation, partially overlap and shift the arrival time estimate, whereas in the latter, the time the position of the correlation peak. In other words, the multi- shift of the template signal that yields the largest cross cor- path channel creates mismatch between the received signal of relation with the received signal gives the desired estimate. interest and the transmitted template used; as a result, instead These two estimates are mathematically equivalent, so the of auto-correlation, we obtain a cross-correlation, which does choice is typically based on design and implementation not necessarily peak at the correct timing. To prevent this effect, costs. The correlation receiver approach requires a possibly some high resolution time delay estimation techniques, such as large number of correlators in parallel (or computations of that described in [33], have been proposed. These techniques are cross correlation in parallel). Alternatively, the matched fil- very complex compared to the correlation based algorithms. ter approach requires only a single filter, but its impulse Fortunately, due to the large bandwidth of a UWB signal, multi- response must closely approximate the time-reversed ver- path components are usually resolvable without the use of com- sion of the received signal waveform plus a device or a pro- plex algorithms. However, multiple correlation peaks are still gram that can identify the instant at which the filter output present and it is important to consider algorithms such as that reaches its peak. proposed in [26] to detect the first arriving signal path; see also The maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) of the arrival time [34]–[38] for improved recent alternatives. can be also reduced to the estimate based on the matched filter or correlation receiver, when the communication channel can MULTIPLE ACCESS INTERFERENCE be modeled as an AWGN channel (see also [28]). It is also well In a multiuser environment, signals from other nodes interfere known in radar theory (see, e.g., [24]) that this MLE achieves with the signal of a given node and degrade performance of time the CRLB asymptotically. It can be shown, for AWGN channels, delay estimation. that a set of TOAs determined from the matched filter outputs is A technique for reducing the effects of MAI is to use different a sufficient statistic for obtaining the MLE or maximum a poste- time slots for transmissions from different nodes. For example, riori (MAP) probability estimate of the location of the node in in the IEEE 802.15.3 PAN standard [39], transmissions from dif- question (see [29]–[32]). ferent nodes are time division multiplexed so that no two nodes Instead of the optimal MLE/MAP location estimate, the con- in a given piconet transmit at the same time. However, even ventional TOA-based scheme estimates the location of the node with such time multiplexing, there can still be MAI from neigh- using the lower-complexity least squares (LS) approach [20]: boring piconets and MAI is still an issue. Furthermore, time multiplexing is often undesirable since spectral efficiency can be N reduced by channelization. θˆ = arg min w [τ − d (θθ)/θ c]2 ,(4) θ i i i i=1 NLOS PROPAGATION When the direct LOS between two nodes is blocked, only reflec- where N is the number of reference nodes, τi is the ith TOA tions of the UWB pulse from scatterers reach the receiving node. measurement, di(θθ)θ := θ − θ i is the distance between the Therefore, the delay of the first arriving pulse does not represent given node and the ith reference node, with θ and θ i denoting the true TOA. Since the pulse travels an extra distance, a posi- their locations respectively, and wi is a scalar weighting factor tive bias called the NLOS error is present in the measured time for the i th measurement that reflects the reliability of the delay. In this case, using the LS technique in (4) causes large i th TOA estimate. errors in the location estimation process, since the LS solution Although location estimation can be performed in a straight- is MLE optimal only when each measurement error is a zero forward manner using the conventional LS technique represented mean Gaussian random variable with known variance. by (4) for a single user, line-of-sight (LOS) and single-path envi- In the absence of any information about NLOS errors, accu- ronment, it becomes challenging when more realistic situations rate location estimation is impossible. In this case, some non- are considered. In such scenarios, the main sources of errors are parametric (pattern recognition) techniques, such as those in multipath propagation, multiple access interference (MAI), and [40] and [41], can be employed. The main idea behind nonpara- non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation. In addition, for UWB sys- metric location estimation is to gather a set of TOA measure- tems in particular, realizing the purported high location resolu- ments from all the reference nodes at known locations tion faces major challenges in accurate timing of ultrashort beforehand and use this set as a reference when a new set of pulses of ultralow power density. measurements is obtained.
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [73] JULY 2005 Another consequence of high time resolution inherent in UWB signals is the uncertainty region for TOA; that is, the set of delay positions that includes TOA is usually very large compared to the chip duration. In other words, a large num- ber of chips need to be searched for TOA. This makes con- ventional correlation-based serial search approaches d1 impractical, and calls for fast TOA estimation schemes. Finally, high time resolution, or equivalently large band-
d2 width, of UWB signals makes it very impractical to sample the received signal at or above the Nyquist rate, which is typically on the order of tens of GHz. To facilitate low-power UWB radio designs, it is essential to perform high-performance TOA esti- d 3 mation at affordable complexity, preferably by making use of frame-rate or symbol-rate samples.
FUNDAMENTAL LIMITS FOR TOA ESTIMATION In this section, we delineate the fundamental limits of TOA esti- [FIG3] Distance-based positioning technique. The distances can mation and present means of realizing the high time resolution be obtained via the SS or the TOA estimation. The blue (dark) of UWB signals at affordable complexity. For positioning applica- nodes are the reference nodes. tions, we focus on TOA estimation for a single link between the target node and a reference node. We start with deriving the In practical systems, however, it is usually possible to obtain CRLB of TOA estimation achieved by the ML estimator [47] for a some statistical information about the NLOS error. Wylie and realistic UWB multipath channel [48], [49]. Holtzman [42] observed that the variance of the TOA measure- ments in the NLOS case is usually much larger than that in the CRLB FOR TOA ESTIMATION IN MULTIPATH CHANNELS LOS case. They rely on this difference in the variance to identify In a UWB positioning system, a reference node transmits a stream NLOS situations and then use a simple LOS reconstruction algo- of ultrashort pulses p(t) of duration Tp at the nanosecond scale. rithm to reduce the location estimation error. Also, by assuming Each symbol is conveyed by repeating over Nf frames one pulse a scattering model for the environment, the statistics of TOA per frame (of frame duration Tf Tp), resulting in a low duty measurements can be obtained, and then well-known tech- cycle transmission form [50]. Every frame contains Nc chips, each niques, such as MAP and ML, can be employed to mitigate the of chip duration Tc. Once timing is acquired at the receiver’s end, effects of NLOS errors [43], [44]. In the case of tracking a mobile node separation can be accomplished with node-specific pseudo- user in a wireless system, biased and unbiased Kalman filters can random time-hopping (TH) codes {c[i]}∈[0, Nc − 1], which be employed to estimate the location accurately [45], [41]. time-shift the pulse positions at multiples of Tc [50], as shown in In addition to introducing a positive bias, NLOS propagation Figure 3. The symbol waveform comprising Nf frames is given by − ( ) = Nf 1 ( − − ) may also cause a situation where the first arriving pulse is usu- ps t : i=0 p t c[i]Tc iTf , which has symbol duration ally not the strongest pulse. Therefore, conventional TOA esti- Ts := Nf Tf . The transmitted UWB waveform is given by mation methods that choose the strongest path would introduce +∞ another positive bias into the estimated TOA. In UWB position- √ s(t) = ε a[k]p (t − kT − b[k]), (5) ing systems, first path detection algorithms [26], [46] have been s s k=−∞ proposed to mitigate the effects of the NLOS error. Later we will consider a unified analysis of the NLOS loca- where ε is the transmission energy per symbol and is the tion estimation problem and present estimators that are modulation index on the order of Tp. With s[k] ∈ [0; M − 1] asymptotically optimal in the presence and absence of statisti- denoting the Mary symbol transmitted by the reference node cal NLOS information [32]. during the kth symbol period. Equation (5) subsumes two commonly used modulation schemes, pulse position modula- HIGH TIME RESOLUTION OF UWB SIGNALS tion (PPM) for which b[k] = s[k], and a[k] = 1 for all k and As we have noted above, the extremely large bandwidth of UWB pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) for which a[k] = s[k] and signals results in very high temporal (and thus spatial) resolu- b[k] = 0ffor all k [50], [51]. tion. On the other hand, it also imposes challenges to accurate Adopting a tapped delay line multipath channel model, the TOA estimation in practical systems. received signal after multipath propagation is First, clock jitter becomes an important factor in evaluating the accuracy of UWB positioning systems [25]. Since UWB pulses have L ( ) = α ( − τ ) + ( ), ( ) very short (subnanosecond) duration, clock accuracies and drifts r t js t j n t 6 = in the target and the reference nodes affect the TOA estimates. j 1
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [74] JULY 2005 where L is the number of paths, with path amplitudes {αj} and fundamental lower limit to the variance of a UWB timing delays {τj} satisfying τj <τj+ 1, ∀ j. The noise n(t) is approxi- estimator is determined by the pulse shape p(t), path gains {α2} mated as a zero-mean white Gaussian process with double- j ,and the observation interval KTs, which in turn relates sided power spectral density N0/2 [52]. to the pulse repetition gain Nf . Let us collect the unknown path gains and delays in (6) into Albeit useful in benchmarking performance, the CRLB in a 2L × 1 channel parameter vector (10) is quite difficult to approach when synchronizing a prac- tical UWB receiver. The difficulty is rooted in the unique T θ = [α1,...,αL,τ1,...,τL] .(7) characteristics of UWB signaling induced by its ultrawide bandwidth. TOA estimation The received signal is POSITIONING SYSTEMS CAN BE DIVIDED via the ML principle requires observed over an interval sampling at or above the INTO THREE MAIN CATEGORIES: TIME-OF- t ∈ [0, T0], with T0 = KTs Nyquist rate, which results in spanning K symbol periods. ARRIVAL, DIRECTION-OF-ARRIVAL, AND a formidable sampling rate of The log-likelihood function of SIGNAL-STRENGTH BASED SYSTEMS. 14.3–35.7 GHz for a typical θ takes the form [47] UWB monocycle of duration 0.7 ns [47]. Such a high sampling rate might be essential in 2 T L achieving high-performance TOA estimation in AWGN or 1 0 ln[(θθ)θ ] =− r(t) − αj s(t − τj) dt.(8) low-scattering channels. For multipath channels with inher- N o 0 j=1 ent large diversity, on the other hand, recent research has led to low-complexity TOA estimators that sample at much lower Taking the second-order derivative of (8) with respect to θ, rates of one sample per frame or even per symbol [34]–[38]. we obtain the Fisher information matrix (FIM) after straightfor- Therefore, the CRLB is more pertinent for outdoor applica- ward algebraic manipulations tions where low-scattering channels prevail but not necessar- ily so for strong-scattering channels that characterize dense-multipath indoor environments in emerging commer- Fαα Fατ Fθ = ,(9) cial applications of UWB radios. In the latter case, computa- Fατ Fττ tional complexity limits the applicability of ML timing estimators in addition to implementation constraints = ( EE /N ) =−( EE /N ) where Fαα : KNf p o I, Fατ : KNf p o diag imposed at the A/D modules. In such indoor environments, a {α ,...,α } = ( EE/N ) {α2,...,α2} E 1 L and Fττ : KNf p o diag 1 L ; p, very large number of closely spaced channel taps must be E E p, and p are energy-related constants determined by the estimated from a very large sample set, to capture sufficient pulse shape p(t) and its derivative p(t) := ∂p(t)/∂ t; and symbol energy from what has been scattered by dense multi- diag{·} denotes a diagonal matrix. When there is no overlap path [47], [55]–[57]. Another complication in ML estimation between neighboring signal paths, it follows that is the pulse distortion issue in UWB propagation [58]. E = Tp 2( ) E = Tp ( ) ( ) = 2( ) − 2( ) / p : 0 p t dt, p : 0 p t p t dt [p Tp p 0 ] 2 , Frequency-dependent pulse distortion results in nonideal E = Tp ( ) 2 and p : 0 [p t ] dt. Based on (9), the CRLB of each time receive-templates, which further degrades the performance of delay estimate τˆj, j = 1,...,L, is given by ML estimation. There is clearly a need for practical timing estimation methods that properly account for the unique fea- −1 −1 tures of UWB transmissions. CRB(τˆj) = (Fττ − Fατ FααFατ ) j, j Next, we present rapid UWB-based low-complexity TOA esti- N = o .(10) mators that bypass pulse-rate sampling and path-by-path chan- E(E − E2/E )α2 KNf p p p j nel parameter estimation. Variance expressions of such timing estimators provide meaningful measures for evaluating the per- As a special case, when L = 1 and |p(0)|=|p(Tp)|,(10) reduces formance of practical UWB positioning systems. to its AWGN counterpart given in [53] LOW-COMPLEXITY TOA ∞ 2| ( )|2 ESTIMATION IN DENSE MULTIPATH No −∞ f P f df CRB(τˆ1) = , E = ∞ ,(11) The key idea behind low-complexity TOA estimation is to con- KN EEα2 p |P( f )|2df f p 1 −∞ sider the aggregate unknown channel instead of resolving all closely spaced paths. As we will show, it suffices to estimate only where P( f ) is the Fourier transform of p(t). Depending on the first path arrival from the LOS nodes to effect asymptotically whether s[k] is deterministic or random, for the data-aided optimal UWB-based geolocation. Isolating the first arrival time versus blind cases, (10) and (11) are exact CRLBs in the data- τ1, other path delays can be uniquely described as τj,1 := τj − τ1 aided case and represent the looser modified CRB (MCRB) in with respect to τ1. It is then convenient to express r(t) in terms the non-data-aided case [54]. It is evident from (10) that the of the aggregate receive-pulse pR(t) that encompasses the
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [75] JULY 2005 √ transmit-pulse, spreading codes and multipath effects [c.f. (5) sion is given by E p˜R(t; τ1). When a correlation receiver is ˆ˜ and (6) taking PAM as an example]: employed, we will use pR(t; τ1) as the asymptotically opti- mal (in K1 ) correlation template for matching r(t), thus √ ∞ effecting sufficient energy capture without tap-by-tap ( ) = E ( − − τ ) + ( ), r t s[k]pR t kTs 1 n t channel estimation. k=0 During synchronization, the receiver generates symbol-rate L samples at candidate time shifts τ ∈ [0, Ts): where pR(t) := αjps(t − τj,1). (12) = j 1 τ+kTs+TR (τ) = ( )ˆ˜ ( ; τ ) , We select Tf ≥ τL,1 + Tp and c0 ≥ cN −1 to confine the duration yk r t pR t 1 dt f τ+kT of p (t) within [0, T ) and avoid intersymbol interference (ISI). s R s k = 0, 1, ··· , K − 1,(13) Timing synchronization amounts to estimating τ1, which can be accomplished in two stages. First, we use energy detection to estimate τ1/ Ts, where · where TR is the nonzero time- denotes integer floor [35], [38]. support of pR(t), measured This effectively yields a coarse LOCATING A NODE IN A WIRELESS possibly via channel sounding. { 2(τ)} timing offset estimate in terms SYSTEM INVOLVES THE COLLECTION OF The peak amplitude of E yk τ = τ of integer multiples of the sym- LOCATION INFORMATION FROM RADIO corresponds to 1, leading bol period. Subsequently, we SIGNALS TRAVELING BETWEEN THE to the following timing estima- must estimate the residual fine- TARGET NODE AND A NUMBER OF tor based on the sample mean (τ ) scale timing offset 1 mod Ts , REFERENCE NODES. square (SMS): which critically affects localiza- tion accuracy. To this end, we τ τ ∈ , ) τˆ = (τ) = 2(τ) .() henceforth confine 1 within a symbol duration; i.e., 1 [0 Ts . 1 arg max z : E yk 14 τ∈[0,Ts) Traditionally, τ1 is estimated by peak-picking the correlation of r(t) with the ideal template pR(t). The challenge here is that no clean template for matching is available, since the multipath In practice, the sample mean-square is replaced by its consistent ( ) channel (and thus pR t ) is unknown. If, on the other hand, we sample square average formed by averaging over K symbol peri- ( ) ˆ(τ) = ( / ) K 2(τ) select the transmit template ps t , timing is generally not identi- ods: z 1 K k= 1 yk . fiable because multiple peaks emerge in the correlator output To understand how this estimator works, let us first examine due to the unknown multipath channel. the data-aided case where we choose the training sequence to Our first step is to establish a noisy template that matches consist of binary symbols with alternating signs. Let the unknown multipath channel. Estimating pR(t) from r(t) τ := [(τ − τ1)mod Ts] denote the closeness of the candidate requires knowledge of τ1, which is not available prior to tim- time-shift τ to the true TOA value τ1. Within any Ts-long inter- ing. For this reason, we will obtain instead a mistimed (by τ1) val, r(t) always contains up to two consecutive symbols. As version of pR(t), which we will henceforth denote as such, the symbol-rate correlation output yk(τ), ∀τ , can be pR(t; τ1), t ∈ [0, Ts]. With reference to the receiver’s clock, derived from (13) as pR(t; τ1) is nothing but a Ts-long snapshot of the delayed ∞ periodic receive waveform p˜ (t; τ ) := = p (t − kTs − τ ) ∞ R 1 k 0 R 1 τ + kTs + TR , (τ) = E 2 ( − − τ ) within the time window [0 Ts]. It is evident from (12) that yk s[k]pR t kTs 1 dt τ + kT the channel components in p˜R(t; τ1) are in sync with those s k= 0 ( ) ( ; τ ) + (τ) contained in the received waveform r t ; thus pR t 1 is the nk ideal template for a symbol-rate correlator to collect all the =±E E+(τ) − E−(τ) + nk(τ), (15) channel path energy in the absence of timing information ( ; τ ) [35], [38]. To estimate pR t 1 , we suppose that a training T τ+T −T s[k] = 1, ∀k E+(τ) := R p2 (t)dt E−(τ) := R s p2 (t)dt sequence of all ones ( ) is observed within an where τ R and 0 R interval of K1 symbol periods. Within this observation win- are the portions of receive-pulse energy captured from the two dow, the noise-free version of the received signal is nothing contributing symbols within the corresponding Ts-long corre- ( ; τ ) E (τ) E (τ) √but the aggregate channel pR t 1 itself being amplified by lation window. Because + and − correspond respec- E and periodically repeated every Ts seconds. We can thus tively to two adjacent symbols of the pattern ±(1, −1), they − ˆ ( ; τ ) = ( / ) K1 1 ( + ) ± obtain the estimate pR t 1 1 K1 k=0 r t kTs , show up in (15) with opposite signs. The sign in (15) is t ∈ [0, Ts], which involves analog operations of delay and determined by the symbol signs within the correlation window average over consecutive symbol-long segments of r(t). We and is irrelevant to the search algorithm in (14). The noise ˆ ( ; τ ) (τ) periodically extend pR t 1 to obtain the waveform component nk contains two noise terms and one noise- ˆ˜ ( ; τ ) = ∞ ˆ ( + ; τ ) ( ) pR t 1 k=0 pR t kTs 1 [59], whose noise-free ver- product term contributed from both the noisy signal r t and
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [76] JULY 2005 ˆ˜ ( ; τ ) ˙ the noisy template pR t 1 in (13). In the noise-free case, zˆ(τ1) T τ =− , when τ = τ , we have E+(τ ) = E := R p2 (t)dt and 1 1 max 0 R z¨(τ1 + µτ) E (τ ) = − 1 0 by definition. Since the integration range ˙2 E zˆ (τ ) encompasses exactly one symbol, each sample amplitude is 1 and var{ˆτ }=E (τ)2 = .(17) 1 ¨2(τ + µτ) determined by the energy Emax contained in the entire z 1 aggregate receive-pulse pR(t). When τ = τ1, two consecu- tive symbols of the pattern ±(1, −1) contribute to the cor- relation in (13) with opposite signs, which leads to To execute the derivations required by (17), we note that |E+(τ) − E−(τ)| < Emax, ∀τ = τ1 , reflecting the energy can- pR(t), a key component in z(τ), has finite time support and cellation effect of this training pattern in the presence of mist- may not be differentiable at t = 0 and t = TR. The following iming. This phenomenon explains why the peak amplitude of operational condition needs to be imposed: z(τ) yields the correct timing estimate for τ1. The validity of ■ C1: pR(t) is twice continuously differentiable over this algorithm can be established even in the presence of [0, + ] ∪ [TR − , TR], where >0 is very small. noise, as the noise term does not alter the peak location of Skipping the tedious derivation procedure for conciseness, z(τ) statistically. It is the change of symbol signs exhibited in we bound the MSE of the unbiased timing estimate τˆ1 as the alternating symbol pattern (1, −1) that reveals the timing information in symbol-rate samples [38]. The same timing (BT )2 var{τ 2}≤ R ,(18) estimation principle also applies to the non-data-aided case, 2 2KK1(2E/N0) p except that it may take a longer synchronization time for the algorithm to converge; see [15] for detailed derivations. where The SMS estimator in (14) enables timing synchronization 2 at any desirable resolution constrained only by the affordable 2 3 p := min p (µτ) p (µτ)− p (µτ)Emax , complexity: i) coarse timing with low complexity, e.g., by pick- R R R − ing the maximum over N candidate offsets {τ = nT }Nf 1 2 f f n=0 2 ( − µτ) 3 ( − µτ)− ( −µτ)E pR TR pR TR pR TR max taken every Tf in [0, Ts); ii) fine timing with higher complexity at the chip resolution; and iii) adaptive timing (tracking) with voltage-controlled clock (VCC) circuits. As Figure 4 illustrates, is a quantity selected from the worse case between τ ≥ τ1 and the search step size affects the TOA estimation accuracy at the τ ≤ τ1. Obviously, the timing accuracy of this SMS synchronizer high SNR region, where a smaller stepsize results in a lower is closely related to pR(t) via p. To ensure p will be positive, error floor. In the low SNR region, the timing accuracy is the expression in (18) is valid to a limited class of pR(t) wave- dominantly dictated by the multipath energy capture capabili- forms with the following local behavior around their edges: ty of the synchronizer, which is independent of the step size ˆ˜ thanks to the asymptotically optimal template pR(t; τ1) used. In a short synchronization time (small K ), a reasonable SNR −1 can lead to a low normalized mean-square error (MSE) of 10 −3 δτ 0.3 × 10 , which translates into position accuracy of a meter, K=8, =Tf δτ and can be further improved by a finer scale search. K=8, =Tf /2 δτ K=8, =Tf /8 −2 δτ 10 K=32, =Tf VARIANCE OF LOW-COMPLEXITY TOA ESTIMATORS δτ K=32, =Tf /2 To benchmark timing estimation accuracy of the SMS- δτ K=32, =Tf /8 based TOA estimator in (14), we now present its asymptotic estimation variance analytically, using first-order perturba- 10−3 K=8 tion analysis. Because of noise, the maximum of zˆ(τ) Normalized MSE moves from τ1 to τˆ1 = τ1 + τ , thus inducing an estima- ˙ˆ ˆ ¨ 2 2 tion error τ . Let z(τ) := ∂ z(τ)/∂τ and z(τ) := ∂ z(τ)/∂τ K=32 denote the derivatives of the objective function with − τ E 10 4 respect to . When the sample size K or transmit SNR is 0 5 10 15 20 25 sufficiently large such that |τ|≤, we can use the mean Symbol SNR (dB) value theorem to obtain 2 [FIG4] Normalized MSE E{(|τˆ1 − τ1|/Ts) } of the TOA estimate ˙ ˙ ˙ zˆ(τˆ ) ≈ zˆ(τ + τ) = zˆ(τ ) + z¨(τ + µτ)τ, (16) obtained from (14): K is the number of training symbols used 1 1 1 1 and δτ is the search stepsize for candidate τs. Simulation parameters are: Nf = 20, Tf = 50 ns, Tp = Tc = 1 ns, Nc = 48 with randomly generated TH code, and a typical UWB multipath where µ ∈ (0, 1) is a scalar that depends on τ . Because channel modeled by [48] with parameters = 0.5 ns, λ = 2 ns, ˙ = γ = zˆ(τˆ1) = 0 and z¨(τ) is deterministic, it follows that 30 ns, and 5 ns.
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [77] JULY 2005 a 8 ■ C2: pR(t) ∝ t in t ∈ [0, + ], with −1/2 < a < 1/2, for i = 1,...,N, j = 1,...,Li, where c = 3 × 10 m/s is the b ■ C3: pR(t) ∝ (TR − t) in t ∈ [TR − , TR], with speed of light, [xi , yi] is the location of the i th node, lij is −1/2 < b < 1/2. the extra path length induced The result in (18) delin- by NLOS propagation, and eates the required K (and K1) TIME-BASED POSITIONING [x, y] is the target location to to achieve a desired level of TECHNIQUES RELY ON be estimated. timing accuracy for a practi- MEASUREMENTS OF TRAVEL TIMES Note that li1 = 0 for cal positioning system. On OF SIGNALS BETWEEN NODES. i = M + 1,...,N since the the other hand, the asymp- signal directly reaches the totic variance is applicable related node in a LOS situation. only under conditions C1–C3 for a small-error local region Hence, the parameters to be estimated are the NLOS delays and around τ1, which requires the search time resolution to be the location of the node, [x, y], which can be expressed as sufficiently small and the SNR or K to be sufficiently large. θ = [xylllM+1 ···lllN lll1 ···lllM], where In general, the TOA estimation accuracy decreases as the time-bandwidth product BT increases, but it can be marked- R (l l ···l ) for i = 1,...,M, ly improved either by more averaging (larger K or K ) or by lll = i1 i2 iLi (21) 1 i (l l ···l ) for i = M + 1,...,N, higher SNR. i2 i3 iLi
< < ···< FUNDAMENTAL LIMITS FOR LOCATION ESTIMATION with 0 li1 li2 liNi [32]. Note that for LOS signals the In the previous section, we have considered the theoretical first delay is excluded from the parameter set since these are limits for TOA estimation. This section considers the limits known to be zero. for the location estimation problem. We first consider loca- From (19), the joint probability density function (pdf) of the { ( )}N tion estimation based on TOA measurements and then loca- received signals from the N reference nodes, ri t i=1, can be tion estimation based on TOA and SS measurement. The expressed, conditioned on θ, as follows: receiver structures for asymptotically achieving those limits will also be discussed [32]. 2 N 1 Li f (r) ∝ exp − r (t) − α s(t − τ ) dt . θ N i ij ij FUNDAMENTAL LIMITS FOR i=1 0 j=1 TOA-BASED LOCATION ESTIMATION ( ) Consider a synchronous system with N nodes, M of which 22 have NLOS to the node they are trying to locate, while the remaining ones have LOS. Suppose that we know a priori From the expression in (22), the lower bound on the variance which nodes have LOS and which have NLOS. This can be of any unbiased estimator for the unknown parameter θ can be obtained by employing NLOS identification techniques obtained. Toward that end, the FIM can be obtained as [32] [61]–[63]. When such information is unavailable, all first 1 T arrivals can be treated as NLOS signals. Jθ = HJτ H ,(23) c2 The received signal at the i th node can be expressed as where Li HNLOS HLOS NLOS 0 r (t) = α s(t − τ ) + n (t), (19) H := and Jτ := , i il il i I0 0 l=1 LOS
= ,..., τ = τ ···τ ···τ ···τ for i 1 N, where Li is the number of multipath com- with : [ 11 1L1 N1 NLN ]. Matrices HNLOS and ponents at the i th node, αil and τil are the respective ampli- HLOS are related to NLOS and LOS nodes, respectively, and tude and delay of the l th path of the i th node, s(t) is the depend on the angles between the target node and the reference UWB signal as in (5), and ni(t) is a zero mean AGWN process nodes [32]. The components of Jτ are given by with spectral density N0/2. We assume, without loss of gen- NLOS :=diag {1,2,..., M} and LOS := diag erality, that the first M nodes have NLOS and the remaining { M+1, M+2,...,N}, where N − M have LOS. For a 2-D location estimation problem, the delay τij in (19) 2αijαik ∂ ∂ can be expressed as [ i]jk = s(t − τij) s(t − τik)dt,(24) N ∂τij ∂τik 1 2 2 = = π2β2 τij = (xi − x) + (yi − y) + lij ,(20) for j k, and [ i]jj 8 SN Rij, where c 2 SNRij = (|αij| /N0) is the signal to noise ratio of the jth multi-
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE [78] JULY 2005 path component of the i th node’s signal, assuming that s(t) has β unit energy and is given as in (3). τ Correlation ˆ 11 The CRLB for the location estimation problem is the inverse of r1(t) ˆ ˆ T −1 TOA Estimation the FIM matrix; that is, Eθ {(θ − θθ)(θ − θθ) }≥Jθ . It can be shown that the first a × ablock of the inverse matrix is given by [32]