Hybrid TDOA/AOA mobile user location for wideband CDMA cellular systems

Abstract

This paper proposes a mobile user location scheme for wideband code-division multiple-access (CDMA) wireless communication systems. To achieve high location accuracy and low cost of the mobile receiver, the location scheme combines the time difference of arrival (TDOA) measurements from the forward link pilot signals with the angle of arrival (AOA) measurement from the reverse link pilot signal. High chip rates in wideband CDMA systems facilitate accurate TDOA measurements, and a smart antenna used at the home base station (BS) can provide accurate AOA measurement in a macrocell environment. A two-step least square location estimator is developed based on a linear form of the AOA equation in the small error region. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid TDOA/AOA location scheme gives a much higher location accuracy than TDOA only location, when the number of base stations is small and/or when the TDOA measurements have a relatively poor accuracy.