Wi-Fi-Based Performance Analysis of TOA/TDOA Estimators by Stochastic Channel Simulations

Performance evaluation of five TOA/TDOA estimation algorithms (IFT, group delay, ESPRIT, MUSIC, MinNorm) is carried out employing stochastic radio channel modeling. Mean errors and standard deviations for IEEE802.11g/n/ac standards are calculated as a function of coherence bandwidth and Rician K-factor. It can be shown that super-resolution techniques coupled with conventional radio standards can improve TOA/TDOA estimation accuracy significantly, especially in situations where the radio channel is characterized by low coherence bandwidths, which are typical for indoor applications. With K-values > 0.6 range estimation with accuracies in the sub-meter region is possible, even in g-standard with available bandwidth of 20 MHz. Thus, TOA/TDOA localization systems provide better accuracy than radio signal strength measurements.