Multiple UWB Emitters DOA Estimation Employing Time Hopping Spread Spectrum

In this paper, UWB Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation using channelization receiver architecture proposed in [1] is extended to cover the case of multiple UWB emitters employing Time Hopping Spread Spectrum (TH-SS) multiple access technique. The DoA estimation is based on the spectral lines extracted from the channelizer. When considering the multiple-emitter case, these spectral lines are dependent on the hopping sequences assigned to the emitters (as derived in [2]). The principle behind the proposed method is to set the channelizer’s frequencies at which only the spectral lines from the desired UWB emitter are present while those from the other emitters are absent. This requires a proper design of the hopping sequences that govern the transmission of all emitters. First, an additive white Gaussian noise channel is considered to demonstrate the fundamental principle. Then, the estimation in a realistic multipath channel is addressed. Simulation results show that the direction finding function successfully indicates the DoA of the desired signal when the channelizer’s frequencies are set for the detection of that signal.