Stochastic Multipath Model for the In-Room Radio Channel based on Room Electromagnetics

We propose a stochastic multipath model for the received signal for the case where the transmitter and receiver, both with directive antennas, are situated in the same rectangular room. This scenario is known to produce channel impulse responses with a gradual specular-to-diffused transition in delay. Mirror source theory predicts the arrival rate to be quadratic in delay, inversely proportional to room volume and proportional to the product of the antenna beam coverage fractions. We approximate the mirror source positions by a homogeneous spatial Poisson point process and their gain as complex random variables with the same second moment. The multipath delays in the resulting model form an inhomogeneous Poisson point process which enables derivation of the characteristic functional, power/kurtosis delay spectra, and the distribution of order statistics of the arrival delays in closed form. We find that the proposed model matches the mirror source model well in terms of power delay spectrum, kurtosis delay spectrum, order statistics, and prediction of mean delay and rms delay spread. The constant rate model, assumed in e.g. the Saleh-Valenzuela model, is unable to reproduce the same effects.Comment: 14 pages, Manuscript Submitted to IEEE Transaction on Antennas and Propagatio

A General Bayesian Framework for Ellipse-based and Hyperbola-based Damage Localisation in Anisotropic Composite Plates

This paper focuses on Bayesian Lamb wave-based damage localization in structural health monitoring of anisotropic composite materials. A Bayesian framework is applied to take account for uncertainties from experimental time-of-flight measurements and angular dependent group velocity within the composite material. An original parametric analytical expression of the direction dependence of group velocity is proposed and validated numerically and experimentally for anisotropic composite and sandwich plates. This expression is incorporated into time-of-arrival (ToA: ellipse-based) and time-difference-of-arrival (TDoA: hyperbola-based) Bayesian damage localization algorithms. This way, the damage location as well as the group velocity profile are estimated jointly and a priori information taken into consideration. The proposed algorithm is general as it allows to take into account for uncertainties within a Bayesian framework, and to model effects of anisotropy on group velocity. Numerical and experimental results obtained with different damage sizes or locations and for different degrees of anisotropy validate the ability of the proposed algorithm to estimate both the damage location and the group velocity profile as well as the associated confidence intervals. Results highlight the need to consider for anisotropy in order to increase localization accuracy, and to use Bayesian analysis to quantify uncertainties in damage localization.Projet CORALI

Array signal processing for maximum likelihood direction-of-arrival estimation

Emitter Direction-of-Arrival (DOA) estimation is a fundamental problem in a variety of applications including radar, sonar, and wireless communications. The research has received considerable attention in literature and numerous methods have been proposed. Maximum Likelihood (ML) is a nearly optimal technique producing superior estimates compared to other methods especially in unfavourable conditions, and thus is of significant practical interest. This paper discusses in details the techniques for ML DOA estimation in either white Gaussian noise or unknown noise environment. Their performances are analysed and compared, and evaluated against the theoretical lower bounds

Cramer-Rao bounds in the estimation of time of arrival in fading channels

This paper computes the Cramer-Rao bounds for the time of arrival estimation in a multipath Rice and Rayleigh fading scenario, conditioned to the previous estimation of a set of propagation channels, since these channel estimates (correlation between received signal and the pilot sequence) are sufficient statistics in the estimation of delays. Furthermore, channel estimation is a constitutive block in receivers, so we can take advantage of this information to improve timing estimation by using time and space diversity. The received signal is modeled as coming from a scattering environment that disperses the signal both in space and time. Spatial scattering is modeled with a Gaussian distribution and temporal dispersion as an exponential random variable. The impact of the sampling rate, the roll-off factor, the spatial and temporal correlation among channel estimates, the number of channel estimates, and the use of multiple sensors in the antenna at the receiver is studied and related to the mobile subscriber positioning issue. To our knowledge, this model is the only one of its kind as a result of the relationship between the space-time diversity and the accuracy of the timing estimation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Direction finding for an extended target with possibly non-symmetric spatial spectrum

We consider the problem of estimating the direction of arrival (DOA) of an extended target in radar array processing. Two algorithms are proposed that do not assume that the power azimuthal distribution of the scatterers is symmetric with respect to the mass center of the target. The first one is based on spectral moments which are easily related to the target’s DOA. The second method stems from a previous paper by the present authors and consists of a least-squares fit on the elements of the covariance matrix. Both methods are simple and are shown to provide accurate estimates. Furthermore, they extend the range of unambiguous DOAs that can be estimated, compared with the same previous paper