Computationally efficient TOA estimation for UWB signal

Precision ultra-wideband (UWB) ranging and positioning require accurate estimation of time of arrival (TOA). In this paper, we proposed a computationally efficient algorithm to estimate the TOA for UWB signal. In the algorithm we first obtain the propagator operator by using the Propagator Method (PM), and then we adopt the ESPRIT Method estimating the TOA directly. This algorithm requires no peak searching compared to PM, and reduces the number of eigen-decomposition calculation times compared to ESPRIT, which is low complexity and computationally efficient, and the performance is close to ESPRIT. The simulation results validate the proposed algorithm.