Analysis of energy detection receiver for TOA estimation in IR UWB ranging and a novel TOA estimation approach

Ultra wideband (UWB) localization has attracted a lot of attention, as it offers the capability of penetration and high precision positioning with low cost. Time-based UWB ranging can take full advantage of the characteristics of impulse radio (IR) signal. The energy detection (ED) receiver instead of the matched filter is used a lot in the area for its low complexity. In the ED receiver, many factors, such as the integration interval, signal waveform, the upper or lower limit of integration, noise floor and pulse width, affect the ranging performance. These factors have not been studied thoroughly on energy collection in ED-based receivers, while energy collection is very important for IR UWB ranging and localization. Many studies focus on how to estimate the time of arrival (TOA) based on the output of the ED receiver. In the study, we will examine the effects of these factors on energy collection and TOA estimation. Some qualitative conclusions are given. We propose an approach to solve some problems caused by these factors and further improve the ranging accuracy. The approach can break through the performance limitation of TOA estimation with the ED receiver to some extent with some low-cost delayers instead of the high sampling rate analog to digital converters. Simulation results prove that the approach works effectively compared with traditional methods under different channels.