Patent ID: 7489904

Claim:
A method for determining a time of arrival of a direct radio signal within a wireless communication network comprising: decomposing an impulse response function, wherein the impulse response function comprises a time of arrival for each of a plurality of received signals, wherein the decomposing comprises: using quadratic interpolation to identify a time of arrival associated with a peak in the impulse response function; setting a set V of the impulse response function; and computing V=V−A(t, t i )+V 0 , wherein t i is the time of arrival associated with the peak in the impulse response; identifying a smallest time of arrival from the decomposed impulse response function; identifying a time of arrival of the strongest signal; storing the time of arrival of the strongest signal; eliminating the impulse response of the strongest signal from the impulse response of the received signal; repeating the identifying, storing, and eliminating steps for a predetermined number of times; and determining the time of arrival of the direct radio signal as the smallest value of the stored time of arrivals.