A novel TOA estimation method for unknown signal based on intra-pulse correlation accumulation

This paper presents a novel low complexity time-of arrival (TOA) estimation method for unknown intra-pulse modulated signal under low SNR condition. The received signal is firstly pre-processed by delayed conjugate multiplication to reduce the intra-pulse modulation and get a rough range of the signal. Then a novel intra-pulse correlation accumulation method is applied to achieve a precise estimation of rising and falling edge. Simulations are conducted to show the feasibility of the method and evaluate the performance of estimation. Compared with existing methods, this novel method can achieve a better estimation result.