Navigation Potential of Signals of Opportunity-Based Time Difference of Arrival Measurements

摘要

This research introduces the concept of navigation potential, NP, to quantify the intrinsic ability to navigate using a given signal. NP theory is a new, information theory-like concept that provides a theoretical performance limit on estimating navigation parameters from a received signal that is modeled through a stochastic mapping of the transmitted signal and measurement noise. NP theory is applied to SOP-based TDOA systems in general as well as for the Gaussian case. Furthermore, the NP is found for a received signal consisting of the transmitted signal, multiple delayed and attenuated replicas of the transmitted signal, and measurement noise. Multipath-based NP captures the dominant error source foreseen in SOP-based navigation systems and may be more indicative of actual system performance than non-multipath-based metrics. NP theory applies to signals other than SOP. As an example, NP is used to bound GPS correlation error performance for the multipath and no-multipath case.