Localization in Distributed Wireless Systems Based on High-Accuracy Microwave Ranging

We present a high-accuracy localization approach for estimating the positions of elements in a distributed phased array to support distributed beamforming. The approach is based on a spectrally-sparse, high-accuracy microwave ranging method and time of arrival (TOA) estimation between three receiving antennas. The ranging approach leverages a spectrally-sparse waveform that achieves near-optimal range accuracies on the order of 5 mm with a 9 MHz waveform bandwidth implemented at C-band. We implement the approach in software-defined radios, and demonstrate localization accuracy below 5 cm with a receiving array area more than an order of magnitude smaller than other approaches.