Self-Calibration for the Time Difference of Arrival Positioning

The time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) self-calibration is an important topic for many applications, such as indoor navigation. One of the most common methods is to perform nonlinear optimization. Unfortunately, optimization often gets stuck in a local minimum. Here, we propose a method of dimension...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Juri Sidorenko, Volker Schatz, Dimitri Bulatov, Norbert Scherer-Negenborn, Michael Arens, Urs Hugentobler
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
Series:Sensors
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/7/2079
Description
Summary:The time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) self-calibration is an important topic for many applications, such as indoor navigation. One of the most common methods is to perform nonlinear optimization. Unfortunately, optimization often gets stuck in a local minimum. Here, we propose a method of dimension lifting by adding an additional variable into the <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <msup> <mi>l</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msup> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> norm of the objective function. Next to the usual numerical optimization, a partially-analytical method is suggested, which overdetermines the system of equations proportionally to the number of measurements. The effect of dimension lifting on the TDOA self-calibration is verified by experiments with synthetic and real measurements. In both cases, self-calibration is performed for two very common and often combined localization systems, the DecaWave Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and the Abatec Local Position Measurement (LPM) system. The results show that our approach significantly reduces the risk of becoming trapped in a local minimum.
ISSN:1424-8220