All-Directional DOA Estimation for Ultra-Wideband Regular Tetrahedral Array Using Wrapped PDoA.

In this paper, we proposed a Regular Tetrahedral Array (RTA) to cope with various types of sensors expected in Ultra-Wideband (UWB) localization requiring all-directional detection capability and high accuracy, such as indoor Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices at diverse locations, UAVs performing aerial navigation, collision avoidance and takeoff/landing guidance. The RTA is deployed with four synchronized Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transceivers on its vertexes and configured with arbitrary aperture. An all-directional DOA estimation algorithm using combined TDoA and wrapped PDoA was conducted. The 3D array RTA was decomposed into four planar subarrays solved as phased Uniform Circular Array (UCA) respectively. A new cost function based on geometric identical and variable neighborhood search strategy using TDoA information was proposed for ambiguity resolution. The results of simulation and numerical experiments demonstrated excellent performance of the proposed RTA and corresponding algorithm.