A Generalized TDoA/ToA Model for ToF Positioning

Abstract

Many applications require positioning. Time of Flight (ToF) methods calculate distances by measuring the propagation time of signals. We present a novel ToF localization method. Our new approach works infrastructure-less, without pre-defined roles like Anchors or Tags. It generalizes existing synchronization-less Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA) and Time of Arrival (ToA) algorithms. We show how known algorithms can be derived from our new method. A major advantage of our approach is that it provides a comparable or better clock error robustness, i.e. the typical errors of crystal oscillators have negligible impact for TDoA and ToA measurements. We show that our channel usage is for most cases superior compared to the state-of-the art.