3D DDoA-based self-positioning of mobile devices

This paper presents a self-positioning method for mobile devices in three-dimensional (3D) schemes, where the Direction of Arrival (DoA) of an incident signal is mathematically expressed by an azimuth angle and an elevation angle. The method relies on the estimation of the Direction Difference of Arrival (DDoA), which is linked to the DoAs. In this method, the mobile device localizes itself based on DDoAs of the incident signals from the base stations. An algorithm, which computes DDoAs based on the azimuth and elevation angles, is carefully analyzed. Then the position of the mobile device is estimated using these DDoAs. Furthermore, we propose a Maximum Likelihood estimator, which applies iterative procedures, in order to robustify the position estimation. Simulation results show significant performance improvements.