Precise indoor localization with low-cost field-programmable gate arrays

This paper explores to what extent an abstract model of the barn owl auditory system can be utilized as the core of a digital indoor localization system. A first prototype has been implemented on a low-cost Altera Cyclone II field-programmable gate array. With a system clock of 85 MHz, this prototype yields a resolution of about 0.02 ns for frequencies ranging from 11 kHz to up to 300 MHz. The achieved time resolution equals a spatial resolution of about 1 mm.