Patent ID: 7817091
Filing Date: 2010-10-19
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
1. A method for estimating a time of arrival (TOA) of receiving a signal in a plurality of collocated receivers with respect to transmitting the signal by a single transmitter with a single antenna, wherein each receiver has one antenna, comprising the steps of: receiving the signal in each of the plurality of receivers the signal transmitted by the single transmitter via a corresponding channel to produce a plurality of received signals; correlating, each received signals with the signal that is transmitted to obtain for each received signal estimated channel coefficients and an estimated TOA; determining, for each received signal, a variance of noise; determining, for each received signal, a weight, wherein the weight is determined by dividing the channel coefficients by the variance of the noise; summing the weights to produce a summed weight; multiplying, for each received signal, the estimated TOA by the corresponding weight to produce a weighted estimated TOA; summing the weighted estimated TOA for all of the received signals to produce a summed weighted estimated TOA; and dividing the summed weighted estimated TOA by the summed weights to determine a final TOA estimate with respect to the transmitted signal; determining a distance between the transmitter and the phase center of the collocated receivers based on the final TOA, wherein the steps are performed in a receiver.