Asynchronous Integration of Communication and Localization Systems Using IR-UWB Signals

Impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) signals have become attractive in the integration of communication and localization (ICL) due to their high time resolution and large bandwidth, especially in complicated environments. In this paper, we design an asynchronous IR-UWB ICL system which can jointly perform data transmission and localization using identical waveforms. A sequential detection based data demodulation strategy is provided based on the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) criterion. Aiming at the misaligned pulses which may introduce tremendous errors, we try to propose the novel soft information (SI) based solutions for reliable pulse detection and time of arrival (TOA) estimation. Provided numerical results can validate our analysis, and show that our proposed solution can achieve reliable communication and localization simultaneously.