On the TOA estimation for UWB ranging in complex confined area

This paper addresses ranging in quasi-static environments and presents a time of arrival (TOA) based ranging algorithm. An accurate estimate of signal arrival time is considered essential in time-based wireless and indoor location systems. Super-resolution techniques are applied to the general problem of temporal analysis of the received signal. For this study an experimental model of a UWB multipath channel collected in an underground mine is used. In particular, we are interested in the estimation of the TOA, which is by definition the time delay of the first path. For this purpose, we apply MUltiple Signal Classification (i.e., MUSIC algorithm) to estimate all delays and then decide to retain the first one as the time of arrival. The performance in terms of absolute error is measured. The sensitivity of the estimated TOA with different bandwidths is also evaluated.