Anti multipath cellular radio location for DS/CDMA systems using a novel EKF subchip RAKE tracking loop

This paper discusses an improved method for localization in a DS-CDMA based cellular-phone communication link. This method suggests an optimization for code synchronization, which allows for TDOA (time difference of arrival) estimations to be solved for the position of a mobile phone. It is known that the time delay of a received DS signal, derived from the classical DLL, may express severe timing errors due to multipath effects. A new anti multipath multi-tracking extended Kalman filter loop is shown to achieve far better results especially in the environment of specular multipath. Specifically, this new loop minimizes the errors due to multipath components by letting the EKF decide upon the best weights of its sub-chip processing branches, resulting in a RAKE-like tracking loop. This loop tracks not only the line of sight path, but also the other multipath components as well as their power and phase. It is shown that the implementation of this technique converges to the classical non-coherent code tracking DLL structure when no multipath is assumed, but results in a new and efficient tracking loop structure in the more realistic fading channel case. The application of this technique to the EIA IS-95 system is considered, where accurate location estimations as well as power management utilities are treated.