Mobile Terminal Positioning via Power Delay Profile Fingerprinting: Reproducible Validation Simulations

Non-Line-of-Sight and multipath propagation conditions pose significant problems for most mobile terminal positioning approaches. In contrast, power delay profile fingerprinting (PDP-F) thrives on multipath propagation. This multipath extension of T(D)oA is based on matching an estimated power delay profile from one or several base stations (BSs) (or other transmitters (broadcast, ...)) with a memorized power delay profile map for a given cell. With a single BS, an absolute time reference is required as for ToA. With multiple BSs, that requirement can be dropped as in TDoA. We propose a validation of PDP-F via simulations that can easily be reproduced. The multicellular environment consists of a big box in which multipath arises by reflection off the six sides. The resulting PDP depends on the positions of BS and terminal, the attenuation mechanism and the reflection coefficients of the six sides. We also propose an extension of the PDP-F (PSDP-F) taking into account spatial information available with an multi-antenna reception. PSDP-F can be considered as a multipath extension of the combined T(D)oA and AoA methods, without explicit requirement for antenna array calibration.