Multipath Error Correction in Radio Interferometric Positioning Systems

The radio interferometric positioning system (RIPS) is an accurate node localization method featuring a novel phase-based ranging process. Multipath is the limiting error source for RIPS in ground-deployed scenarios or indoor applications. There are four distinct channels involved in the ranging process for RIPS. Multipath reflections affect both the phase and amplitude of the ranging signal for each channel. By exploiting untapped amplitude information, we put forward a scheme to estimate each channel's multipath profile, which is then subsequently used to correct corresponding errors in phase measurements. Simulations show that such a scheme is very effective in reducing multipath phase errors, which are essentially brought down to the level of receiver noise under moderate multipath conditions. It is further demonstrated that ranging errors in RIPS are also greatly reduced via the proposed scheme.