1. A millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene positioning system, comprising:

a transmitter for transmitting signals continuously in one direction in each of a plurality of time slots and interacting with the reflector for measurement packets;

the reflector is used for scanning all directions to receive signals, recording the signal intensity of the received signals, and identifying the direction with the strongest received signal after scanning is finished as the incident direction of the transmitter signal; the system comprises a transmitter, a receiver and a positioning target, wherein the transmitter is used for transmitting a measurement data packet with the receiver and sending a signal to the positioning target;

the positioning target is used for receiving signals sent by the reflector in multiple directions of each frequency point and determining the incident direction of the reflector signals according to the received signal conditions;

the positioning controller is used for determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packet between the emitter and the reflector; positioning processing of a positioning target is performed based on the determined reflector position and the incidence direction of the reflector signal; and evaluating the reliability of the positioning result according to the position relation between the reflector and the positioning target, and selecting the positioning result with the reliability meeting the requirement as the final positioning result of the positioning target, wherein the reliability meeting the requirement of the positioning result is the positioning result obtained when the position of the positioning target is positioned in a triangle formed by the reflectors.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

the reflector reflects the received signal back to the incident direction of the transmitter signal;

after the emitter receives the signal from the reflector, the reflector for subsequent measurement data packet interaction and the frequency shift parameter thereof are determined.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the positioning controller is disposed in the transmitter or the positioning target, or disposed independently, and the step of determining the position of the reflector based on the interaction result of the measurement data packet in the positioning controller comprises:

when the transmitter receives the returned measurement data packet, the position of the reflector is calculated and determined according to the time when the transmitter sends the measurement data packet and the time when the transmitter receives the reflected measurement data packet.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the direction of incidence of the reflector signal based on the received signal in the positioning target comprises:

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflectors in multiple directions of each frequency point, and the number of times of receiving the signals in each direction is calculated;

one or more directions in which the signals are received the most frequently are selected as directions in which the positioning target receives the reflector signals, and as incident directions of the one or more reflector signals.

5. The system of any of claims 1-4, wherein the positioning controller further comprises:

if the positioning result which meets the requirement does not exist, the step of positioning the positioning target according to the positions of the reflectors and the incident direction of the reflector signals is executed for a plurality of times;

and averaging the obtained multiple positioning results to obtain a final positioning result of the positioning target.

6. A method for millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene positioning, comprising:

the transmitter continuously transmits signals to one direction in each of a plurality of time slots;

the reflector scans all directions to receive signals, records the signal intensity of the received signals, and identifies the direction with the strongest received signal as the incident direction of the transmitter signal after scanning;

carrying out interaction of measurement data packets between the transmitter and the reflector, and determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packets;

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflector in multiple directions of each frequency point, and determines the incident direction of the reflector signals according to the received signal condition;

positioning processing of a positioning target is performed based on the determined reflector position and the incidence direction of the reflector signal;

and evaluating the reliability of the positioning result according to the position relation between the reflector and the positioning target, and selecting the positioning result with the reliability meeting the requirement as the final positioning result of the positioning target, wherein the reliability meeting the requirement of the positioning result is the positioning result obtained when the position of the positioning target is positioned in a triangle formed by the reflectors.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of interacting between the transmitter and the reflector with the measurement data packet is performed before further comprising:

the reflector reflects the received signal back to the incident direction of the transmitter signal;

after the emitter receives the signal from the reflector, the reflector for subsequent measurement data packet interaction and the frequency shift parameter thereof are determined.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of determining the reflector position based on the interaction result of the measurement data packets comprises:

when the transmitter receives the returned measurement data packet, the position of the reflector is calculated and determined according to the time when the transmitter sends the measurement data packet and the time when the transmitter receives the reflected measurement data packet.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein determining the direction of incidence of the reflector signal based on the received signal condition comprises:

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflectors in multiple directions of each frequency point, and the number of times of receiving the signals in each direction is calculated;

one or more directions in which the signals are received the most frequently are selected as directions in which the positioning target receives the reflector signals, and as incident directions of the one or more reflector signals.

10. The method according to any one of claims 6-9, further comprising:

if the positioning result which meets the requirement does not exist, the step of positioning the positioning target according to the positions of the reflectors and the incident direction of the reflector signals is executed for a plurality of times;

and averaging the obtained multiple positioning results to obtain a final positioning result of the positioning target.

Background

Positioning is a popular technique in the field of mobile communication and sensing. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have been widely used in the fields of logistics, transportation, military, and the like. However, due to the low power consumption characteristics of the GPS signal, the performance thereof is greatly degraded in an indoor environment. For this reason, indoor positioning technology based on wireless signals has been widely proposed.

Currently, positioning technology based on millimeter wave signals is receiving wide attention from the industry and academia due to its advantages in terms of accuracy. For example, existing millimeter wave positioning systems may achieve millimeter-scale accuracy in line-of-sight (LoS) scenarios. However, the millimeter wave positioning system has its own drawbacks, such as being easily obstructed by obstacles. Due to its light-like characteristics, even a small obstacle can easily obstruct information transmission between a pair of millimeter-wave transceivers. Accordingly, when obstacles exist, the line-of-sight millimeter wave positioning process is no longer effective.

In order to solve the above problems, people adopt non line of sight (NLoS) scene millimeter wave positioning based on environmental reflection, such as a positioning scheme based on wall reflection. However, ambient reflections are not controllable and the location of the reflections is unpredictable, which means that the transmitter must scan every possible direction to reflect the signal to the receiver. Furthermore, the number of ambient reflection points as anchor points is usually limited, resulting in a low positioning accuracy.

For this reason, it is desirable to design a controllable reflection-based positioning system to achieve higher positioning accuracy. Many novel reflectarray designs have been proposed in recent years to enable stable millimeter-wave communication even in the presence of obstacles. It is composed of phased array, which reflects the signal to the required direction by phase modulation. The reflector provides a new idea for the reflection-based millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene positioning technology.

Although the millimeter wave non-sight scene positioning technology is realized, the existing millimeter wave non-sight scene positioning technology still cannot realize rapid millimeter wave positioning, and meanwhile, the problem that the precise positioning cannot be realized due to inaccurate anchor point coordinates exists

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a system and a method for millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene positioning, which are used for realizing rapid millimeter wave positioning and solving the problem that precise positioning cannot be realized due to inaccurate anchor point coordinates.

The purpose of the invention is realized by the following technical scheme:

a millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene positioning system, comprising:

a transmitter for transmitting signals continuously in one direction in each of a plurality of time slots and interacting with the reflector for measurement packets;

the reflector is used for scanning all directions to receive signals, recording the signal intensity of the received signals, and identifying the direction with the strongest received signal after scanning is finished as the incident direction of the transmitter signal; the system comprises a transmitter, a receiver and a positioning target, wherein the transmitter is used for transmitting a measurement data packet with the receiver and sending a signal to the positioning target;

the positioning target is used for receiving signals sent by the reflector in multiple directions of each frequency point and determining the incident direction of the reflector signals according to the received signal conditions;

the positioning controller is used for determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packet between the emitter and the reflector; positioning processing of a positioning target is performed based on the determined reflector position and the incidence direction of the reflector signal; and evaluating the reliability of the positioning result according to the position relation between the reflector and the positioning target, and selecting the positioning result with the reliability meeting the requirement as the final positioning result of the positioning target, wherein the reliability meeting the requirement of the positioning result is the positioning result obtained when the position of the positioning target is positioned in a triangle formed by the reflectors.

The system also comprises:

the reflector reflects the received signal back to the incident direction of the transmitter signal;

after the emitter receives the signal from the reflector, the reflector for subsequent measurement data packet interaction and the frequency shift parameter thereof are determined.

The positioning controller is arranged in the emitter or the positioning target or independently arranged, and the step of determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packet in the positioning controller comprises the following steps:

when the transmitter receives the returned measurement data packet, the position of the reflector is calculated and determined according to the time when the transmitter sends the measurement data packet and the time when the transmitter receives the reflected measurement data packet.

The step of determining the incidence direction of the reflector signal according to the received signal condition in the positioning target comprises the following steps:

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflectors in multiple directions of each frequency point, and the number of times of receiving the signals in each direction is calculated;

one or more directions in which the signals are received the most frequently are selected as directions in which the positioning target receives the reflector signals, and as incident directions of the one or more reflector signals.

The positioning controller further includes:

if the positioning result which meets the requirement does not exist, the step of positioning the positioning target according to the positions of the reflectors and the incident direction of the reflector signals is executed for a plurality of times;

and averaging the obtained multiple positioning results to obtain a final positioning result of the positioning target.

A method for millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene positioning, comprising:

the transmitter continuously transmits signals to one direction in each of a plurality of time slots;

the reflector scans all directions to receive signals, records the signal intensity of the received signals, and identifies the direction with the strongest received signal as the incident direction of the transmitter signal after scanning;

carrying out interaction of measurement data packets between the transmitter and the reflector, and determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packets;

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflector in multiple directions of each frequency point, and determines the incident direction of the reflector signals according to the received signal condition;

positioning processing of a positioning target is performed based on the determined reflector position and the incidence direction of the reflector signal;

and evaluating the reliability of the positioning result according to the position relation between the reflector and the positioning target, and selecting the positioning result with the reliability meeting the requirement as the final positioning result of the positioning target, wherein the reliability meeting the requirement of the positioning result is the positioning result obtained when the position of the positioning target is positioned in a triangle formed by the reflectors.

Before the step of interacting the measurement data packets between the transmitter and the reflector, the method further comprises:

the reflector reflects the received signal back to the incident direction of the transmitter signal;

after the emitter receives the signal from the reflector, the reflector for subsequent measurement data packet interaction and the frequency shift parameter thereof are determined.

The step of determining the position of the reflector based on the interaction result of the measurement data packets comprises:

when the transmitter receives the returned measurement data packet, the position of the reflector is calculated and determined according to the time when the transmitter sends the measurement data packet and the time when the transmitter receives the reflected measurement data packet.

The step of determining the incident direction of the reflector signal based on the received signal condition comprises:

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflectors in multiple directions of each frequency point, and the number of times of receiving the signals in each direction is calculated;

one or more directions in which the signals are received the most frequently are selected as directions in which the positioning target receives the reflector signals, and as incident directions of the one or more reflector signals.

The method further comprises the following steps:

if the positioning result which meets the requirement does not exist, the step of positioning the positioning target according to the positions of the reflectors and the incident direction of the reflector signals is executed for a plurality of times;

and averaging the obtained multiple positioning results to obtain a final positioning result of the positioning target.

According to the technical scheme provided by the invention, the system and the method for positioning the millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene can effectively improve the positioning accuracy of the RX and overcome the problem that the accurate positioning cannot be realized in the prior art. Meanwhile, the implementation scheme of the embodiment of the invention can also ensure that the complexity of the implementation process meets the requirement, so that the system can realize rapid millimeter wave positioning.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments are briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art to obtain other drawings based on the drawings without creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of embodiment r of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic process diagram of an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a first stage of a reflector positioning process in an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a second stage of a reflector positioning process according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of virtual TX transmit signals for a fast beam alignment procedure in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of an RX received signal sample for a fast beam alignment process in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of an anchor positioning error;

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of triangulation locating in an embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention are clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments of the present invention without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

The embodiment of the invention is realized in a scene based on coexistence of a plurality of reflectors. The coexistence of multiple reflectors allows for sufficient reflection points to allow for more accurate non-line-of-sight millimeter wave positioning. Specifically, in the embodiment of the invention, a two-stage reflectarray discovery scheme is provided based on a millimeter wave reflectarray and by integrating a beam search technology, and a stable target positioning method is provided when the reflectarray serving as an anchor point coordinate is not accurate.

The embodiment of the invention provides a millimeter wave non-line-of-sight scene positioning system, which can comprise a Transmitter (TX), a Reflector (RE), a positioning target (RX) and a positioning controller in the specific implementation process, wherein:

a transmitter for transmitting signals continuously in one direction in each of a plurality of time slots and interacting with the reflector for measurement packets;

the reflector is used for scanning all directions to receive signals, recording the signal intensity of the received signals, and identifying the direction with the strongest received signal after scanning is finished as the incident direction of the transmitter signal; the system comprises a transmitter, a receiver and a positioning target, wherein the transmitter is used for transmitting a measurement data packet with the receiver and sending a signal to the positioning target;

further, the reflector also reflects the received signal back to the incident direction of the transmitter signal; after the transmitter receives the signal sent by the reflector, the reflector for subsequent measurement data packet interaction and frequency shift parameters (such as frequency shift factor, AoA angle and the like) thereof can be determined;

the positioning target is used for receiving signals sent by the reflector in multiple directions of each frequency point and determining the incident direction of the reflector signals according to the received signal conditions;

the positioning controller is used for determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packet between the emitter and the reflector; positioning processing of a positioning target is performed based on the determined reflector position and the incidence direction of the reflector signal; and evaluating the reliability of the positioning result according to the position relation between the reflector and the positioning target, and selecting the positioning result with the reliability meeting the requirement as the final positioning result of the positioning target, wherein the reliability meeting the requirement of the positioning result is the positioning result obtained when the position of the positioning target is positioned in a triangle formed by the reflectors.

As shown in fig. 1, a specific application scenario of the embodiment of the present invention may be that TX is a positioning signal sending end (i.e., a transmitter), RX is a target to be positioned (i.e., a positioning target) (RX is movable in the area), Reflector is a Reflector (i.e., RE), Obstacle is an Obstacle, NLoS link is a non-line-of-sight route, and LoS link is a line-of-sight route. Based on the scenario, the embodiment of the present invention is mainly used for solving the positioning problem under the condition that the direct TX-RX path is blocked by an obstacle (the existing sight line positioning method can be directly used in the case of no blocking). In fig. 1, the RX may still receive reflected signals from the surrounding reflectors (reflectors). The embodiment of the invention aims to deduce and determine the position of RX with the help of the reflected signal sent by the reflector, thereby realizing the positioning processing. Meanwhile, in order to simplify the description and facilitate understanding, the description of the positioning process is performed based on only two dimensions in the embodiment of the present invention.

In a specific implementation, the system provided by the embodiment of the present invention may include one RX (positioning target), one TX (transmitter), multiple REs (reflectors), and one positioning controller. The functional roles of the respective parts are specifically as follows.

(1) Receiver (RX) is the object to be located, positioning object for short.

In a system, there may actually be Multiple receivers, and communications of Multiple RX may be isolated in Frequency or time domain by OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) technology. Thus, in a system, only one may be present at a timeConsider the positioning of one RX. It is specifically assumed that RX is a commonly used millimeter wave receiver. Which can scan the entire two-dimensional space to obtain the signals that may be present. In addition, it is assumed that RX can receive signals from multiple directions simultaneously (but does not know which direction the signal really comes from), and can be N at most^RXAnd (4) respectively.

Specifically, in the system, the receiver may be configured to receive signals transmitted from the reflector in multiple directions at each frequency point, and determine an incident direction of the reflector signal according to the received signal; the step of determining the incident direction of the reflector signal according to the received signal condition in the positioning target may include:

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflectors in multiple directions of each frequency point, and the number of times of receiving the signals in each direction is calculated;

one or more directions in which the signals are received the most frequently are selected as directions in which the positioning target receives the reflector signals, and as incident directions of the one or more reflector signals.

(2) The Transmitter (TX), also called a transmitter, is a common millimeter wave AP (Access Point), and is responsible for transmitting signals and counting received signals. Given the general capabilities of existing millimeter wave APs, it is assumed that it can scan a two-dimensional space and choose to transmit signals up to N^TXThe possible directions. And also assumes that the transmitter can transmit signals to multiple directions simultaneously.

Without loss of generality, the transmitter is assumed to be located at the origin of a two-dimensional space for ease of representation.

In the system, the transmitter may be used to interact with the reflector with measurement packets in order to determine the position of the reflector; wherein, in the process of determining the position of the reflector, the specific processing process comprises the following steps:

the transmitter continuously transmits signals to one direction in each of a plurality of time slots;

the reflector scans all directions to receive signals, records the signal intensity of the received signals, and identifies the direction with the strongest received signal as the incident direction of the transmitter signal after scanning

The reflector reflects the received signal back to the incident direction of the transmitter signal;

after the emitter receives the signal from the reflector, the reflector for subsequent measurement data packet interaction and the frequency shift parameter thereof are determined.

(3) Reflectors there are typically multiple Reflectors (REs) in the system environment to improve millimeter wave communication performance. It is assumed that the line-of-sight path to each RE through the pre-planned TX always exists. It is also assumed that REs can cover the entire space. Specifically, M may be used to denote the number of reflectors, and RE M may be used to denote a typical reflector.

In the system, the reflector can be used for transmitting measurement data packets with the transmitter and sending signals to a positioning target, so that the positioning target can determine the incident direction of the reflector signals conveniently, and the like;

since the RE may not contain signal generating components in the normal case, it is far more cost-effective than TX. The reflector may be phase modulated to receive a signal in a particular direction and reflect the signal in another direction. But it is also possible to choose to reflect the signal, N, simultaneously in multiple directions without the need for high data rates^REAs are the possible directions.

In order to achieve successful communication, it is important to eliminate interference between the original signal and the reflected signal, and even between signals from different reflectors. Therefore, different reflectors are assumed to produce different frequency shifts when performing reflective positioning. These frequency shift values may be arranged as integer multiples of the predetermined granularity Δ. In other words, the frequency shift of RE m is λ_mΔ, and satisfy

Wherein M is^MAXIs the maximum value of the number of coexisting reflectors. Thus, different reflected signals have different center frequencies, which means that signal interference can be easily avoided. However, fromAt one time, both RX and TX can only receive signals at a particular frequency, which must be at most M^MAXPossibly iterated over frequency to locate RE reflected signals in the frequency domain.

(4) Controller, positioning controller: the proposed positioning algorithm is executed on the controller. In particular, the controller may be hosted in the Transmitter (TX), the Receiver (RX), or in a separate device. The controller is responsible for beam alignment, acquiring information from the RX, and then performing target location.

In the system, the positioning controller is mainly used for determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packet between the emitter and the reflector; positioning processing of a positioning target is performed based on the determined reflector position and the incidence direction of the reflector signal; evaluating the reliability of the positioning result according to the position relation between the reflector and the positioning target, and selecting the positioning result with the reliability meeting the requirement as the final positioning result of the positioning target, wherein the reliability meeting the requirement of the positioning result is the positioning result obtained when the position of the positioning target is positioned in a triangle formed by the reflectors; wherein, the step of determining the reflector position according to the interaction result of the measurement data packet in the positioning controller comprises:

when the transmitter receives the returned measurement data packet, the position of the reflector is calculated and determined according to the time when the transmitter sends the measurement data packet and the time when the transmitter receives the reflected measurement data packet.

Further, the positioning controller further includes the processing steps of:

if a positioning result meeting the requirements is not found in the previous positioning processing process, the step of positioning the positioning target according to the positions of the reflectors and the incident directions of the reflector signals can be executed for multiple times; the specific execution times can be set according to actual needs;

after the positioning processing is performed for multiple times, multiple positioning results are obtained, and at this time, the obtained multiple positioning results can be averaged to be used as a final positioning result of the positioning target.

The specific object location procedure will be described in more detail in the following description.

In the embodiment of the present invention, based on the scenario shown in fig. 1, specifically, the positioning processing process is shown in fig. 2, and the corresponding mechanism mainly includes the following three main steps:

step (1): reflector Discovery process (Reflector Discovery)

The reflector discovery process is specifically used for estimating the position of the reflector, so that the determined position of the reflector is taken as an anchor point in the subsequent positioning process; in the process, interaction of a measurement data packet can be specifically carried out between the transmitter and the reflector, and the position of the reflector is determined according to an interaction result of the measurement data packet; wherein the step of determining the position of the reflector according to the interaction result of the measurement data packet may include:

when the transmitter receives the returned measurement data packet, the position of the reflector is calculated and determined according to the time when the transmitter sends the measurement data packet and the time when the transmitter receives the reflected measurement data packet.

This process can be performed at low frequencies, since the reflector position is relatively stable; specifically, the transmitter actively transmits signals to all possible directions, and estimates the reflector position according to the ToF (Time of Flight) and AoA (Angle of Arrival) information of the reflected signals.

In the processing step, before the interacting step of the measurement data packet between the emitter and the reflector is performed, the following steps may be further included:

the transmitter continuously transmits signals to one direction in each of a plurality of time slots;

the reflector scans all directions to receive signals, records the signal intensity of the received signals, and identifies the direction with the strongest received signal as the incident direction of the transmitter signal after scanning;

the reflector reflects the received signal back to the incident direction of the transmitter signal;

after receiving the signal from the reflector, the transmitter determines the reflector for subsequent measurement packet interaction and its frequency shift parameters, which may include a frequency shift factor and a reflection AoA.

Step (2): fast Beam Alignment (Fast Beam Alignment) procedure, i.e., a procedure to determine the relative position of RE and RX

The relative positions of the REs and the RX can be obtained by performing a fast beam alignment procedure. The complexity of this procedure becomes the most interesting technical issue due to the requirement of real-time positioning. The embodiment of the invention specifically introduces an improved Hash-based algorithm to realize the logarithm complexity, so that the complexity of the process can meet the requirement.

Specifically, in this step, the positioning target receives signals transmitted from the reflector in multiple directions at each frequency point, and determines the incident direction of the reflector signal according to the received signal condition, and further determines the position of the reflector and the RE-RX relationship, i.e. obtains the relative position of RE and RX. The process further comprises the steps of:

the positioning target receives signals sent by the reflectors in multiple directions of each frequency point, and the number of times of receiving the signals in each direction is calculated;

one or more directions in which the signals are received the most frequently are selected as directions in which the positioning target receives the reflector signals, and as incident directions of the one or more reflector signals.

And (3): target Localization process (Target Localization)

In the process, the relative position relation between the position of the reflector and the RE-RX is known, and based on the relative position relation, RX positioning can be realized through anchoring triangulation analysis. In consideration of possible errors of the reflector position, a coordinate fusion method based on confidence coefficient can be further adopted to further improve the positioning accuracy.

Specifically, in this step, first, positioning processing of a positioning target is performed based on the determined reflector position and the incident direction of the reflector signal; and then, evaluating the reliability of the positioning result according to the position relation between the reflector and the positioning target, and selecting the positioning result with the reliability meeting the requirement as the final positioning result of the positioning target, wherein the reliability meeting the requirement of the positioning result is the positioning result obtained when the position of the positioning target is positioned in a triangle formed by the reflectors.

Further, if there is no positioning result meeting the requirement in the above processing procedure, the step of performing positioning processing of the positioning target according to the positions of the plurality of reflectors and the incident direction of the reflector signal may be performed a plurality of times; and averaging the obtained multiple positioning results to obtain the final positioning result of the positioning target.

In the above description, only three steps (1) - (3) included in the positioning process are briefly described, and in the following description, a specific implementation process of each step will be specifically described in detail.

(I) Reflector discovery Process

Since the RE (reflector) acts as an anchor point in the system, the location of the RE should be estimated first, and the reflector location estimation and complexity analysis will be described in detail below.

(1) Reflector positioning

The estimation of the reflector position is performed only in a low frequency manner, taking into account the relative stability of the reflector position. The method is realized by a two-stage method based on ToF and AoA information. Unlike other ToF-based methods, the embodiments of the present invention do not require perfect synchronization between the TX and RE, which can avoid synchronization overhead. The basic idea of the embodiment of the present invention is derived from a Two-way Ranging (TWR) technology, which is composed of Two stages, specifically, as shown in fig. 3 and 4, where a TX incoming direction identifier is an identified TX signal incoming direction.

The first stage is a recording stage

In the first stage, the RE identifies the incident direction of the TX signal, and the stage is divided into a plurality of time slots, and the TX continuously transmits signals to one direction in each time slot. The time slot is long enough for the RE to scan each possible incoming direction and record the received signal strength. At the end of the phase scan, each RE will identify the direction in which the received signal is strongest, which is taken as the direction of incidence (TX incoming direction) of the TX signal. At this stage RE does not reflect the signal.

The second phase is a response phase

In this second phase, the TX is made to acquire the location of the RE. Specifically, similar to the first stage, TX transmits a signal to one direction within one time slot. The RE will reflect the signal back to the incident direction of TX, which only occurs in the time slot corresponding to the incident direction. Since TX does not know the frequency shift of the RE, it must scan all possible frequency shifts in the frequency domain to receive the RE reflected signal.

When the TX receiving frequency is lambda_mWhen a is reflected, it will know that there is a frequency shift factor of lambda_mRE of (1), and its reflection AoA θ_m. Thereafter, TX will send a dedicated data packet for ToF measurements. Departure timeDecoded into each transmitted packet. Thus, when TX receives a reflection packet at time t, the location of RE m can be calculated as:

where c is the speed of light. Since the reflector may employ a reflection mode known as air modulation, the time it takes for the reflector to process the signal may not need to be considered.

(2) Complexity analysis

The complexity of the recording phase is O (N)^TXN^RE) Since the RE scans N in each slot^REIn one direction and has a total of N^TXAnd a time slot. The complexity of the response phase is O (N)^TXM^MAX) Since TX needs to scan M in each slot^MAXA possible frequency point. It can be seen that the temporal complexity is O (N)^TX(N^RE+M^MAX))。

It should be noted that the above process may introduce some errors into the RE position estimation, since there is inevitably some bias in measuring the AoA and ToF information. To this end, embodiments of the present invention will address the interference of these errors in the target location process.

(II) fast Beam alignment procedure

In this process, a feasible method is specifically proposed to achieve fast beam alignment to support real-time positioning.

(1) Alignment strategy at multiple frequency points

Positioning plays a more important role in the system provided by embodiments of the present invention than communication. Therefore, the object of the embodiments of the present invention is not to increase the signal strength of RX, but to obtain the RE position relative to RX, i.e. the RE-RX position relationship. In order to achieve the aim, a fast beam alignment algorithm can be specifically adopted, and the basic idea is to enable millimeter wave signals to be transmitted and received from multiple directions simultaneously, so that the time of scanning space is saved.

Hash-based beam alignment algorithm:

the algorithm is particularly extended on the basis of a hash-based beam alignment method.

In the hash-based beam alignment method, a transmitting end and a receiving end simultaneously transmit and receive signals from a plurality of random directions. Since millimeter wave signals typically come from no more than 4 directions, they divide TX and RX directions into 4 groups, respectively. It then uses a probabilistic based approach to predict the best direction for the transmitter and receiver. This process can achieve a logarithmic level of search complexity.

In systems in which embodiments of the present invention are used, including many reflectors, the relative positions of the reflectors are known by the TX through the reflector discovery process. Thus, TX can be first combined with a reflector, working like a virtual TX, whose signal direction can reach O (MN)^RE). The relative relationship between RX and combined beam direction can then be found using a similar method as before.

However, each reflector in the virtual TX may shift the reflected millimeter-wave signal differently. This means that each reflected millimeter-wave beam is characterized by a direction and a frequency. Only if RX matches these two characteristics, it can receive this beam. Therefore, the RX in the system needs to scan all possible frequencies in one hash selection to match the beams from these directions.

Reduction in frequency domain:

since there is at most one RE for one frequency bin, the following reduction method can be used to further reduce the search operation. For each possible frequency f, keep one D^fThe set is the possible incoming directions of REs in that frequency, which is initialized to a set of all directions. At frequency f, when RX wants to receive hash direction (denoted as D)^hash) Before, D should be compared^fAnd D^hashIf, ifThe receiving process is skipped. However, if indeed in frequency f, through direction D^fReceiving the signal, then D^fIs updated to D^f∩D^hash. When | D^fWhen 1, it can be concluded that the incident direction of RE in frequency f has been determined, and it is no longer necessary to scan frequency f later. While this mechanism does not reduce the complexity of the search, it can reduce the number of signal detection operations on a large scale.

(2) Alignment sample

As shown in fig. 5, the virtual TX sends signals in different directions in a random manner like a hash. At the same time, RX also receives signals from different, randomly selected directions.

Referring to fig. 5, it is assumed that the three reflectors are in the 60 °,90 °, 120 ° directions of RX. Both the RX and the reflector have 16 directions of choice to reflect/receive signals. Each RX choice listens randomly from 4 directions, which is considered as a group, i.e. group1-group4 (constituting groups). Specifically, 6 experiments (Experimental 1-Experimental 6) were carried out, as shown in FIG. 6.

The number of occurrences in each direction is calculated as the possible directions and the three with the highest frequency of occurrence are selected. From fig. 6, it can be seen that the 60 °,90 °, 120 ° directions are the only three directions that occur 6 times, and satisfy the predetermined requirements. In fact, as previously assumed, the three reflectors do exist in these directions.

(3) Complexity analysis

In a conventional exhaustive approach, the TX would signal M REs one by one, and each RE would try N^REAnd (4) direction. RX also needs to receive N^RXDirection and scan each M^MAXAnd (4) frequency points. Thus. Time complexity of O (MM)^MAXN^REN^RX)。

In contrast, according to the conclusions of the previous studies provided by the embodiments of the present invention, only the alignment process O (log (N) needs to be repeated in the system^REN^RX) ) times. Then, the possibility that the error can be controlled is O (1/N)^REN^RX). Therefore, the beam alignment complexity can be reduced to O (MM) in the embodiment of the invention^MAXKlog(N^REN^RX) In which K is the number of packets per hash. This complexity is a great improvement over the traditional exhaustive approach.

(III) target location

Using the obtained RE-RX location relationship, the noise at the anchor point location is processed using a triangulation-based positioning method, and a confidence-based solution. A polar-based approach is specifically proposed to handle the limited number of anchors.

(1) Positioning mode based on triangle analysis

The reflector, which has revealed its relative direction to the TX, is defined as the anchor point. When the number of anchor points is large enough, the position of the RX can be derived according to the position relationship between the anchor points and the RX. The method is relatively simple and saves cost. In addition, a complicated synchronization between the reflectors can be avoided.

The basic idea is as follows: the triangle-based positioning method is very simple. What need be specifically known is only some (x)_m，y_m，α_m) An information item of the form wherein (x)_m，y_m) Is the position of the reflector m, α_mIs the relative angle of the reflector m to the target. I.e. first try to select three items of data that can be made up into a triangle. And then positioning the target by utilizing a triangle analysis method. Next, the corresponding process is repeated until all the data are fully utilized, and the average coordinate is taken as the final result.

Influence of the anchoring position error: as mentioned before, errors in the estimated position of the reflector can have a large impact on the final result. As shown in fig. 7, it can be seen from fig. 7 that even a small reflector position error results in a large estimation error of the final result, the real position in fig. 7 is the RX actual position, and the estimated position is the RX estimated position. Therefore, a robust method is needed to improve positioning accuracy and stability.

Fusion method based on credibility: easton et al have demonstrated that when the target is within the anchor triangle, the positioning accuracy can be high. If the reflectors form a triangle, as shown in fig. 8, the positioning error is limited when RX is within the triangle.

Therefore, the idea to solve this dilemma is to fuse according to the confidence level of each localization result. Each set of results is scored by evaluating whether the target is within a triangle. As shown in fig. 8, the positioning accuracy based on the RX inside the triangle is greatly improved. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the effect of inaccurate triangles (where RX is not within the triangle formed by the reflectors) in a confidence-based fusion approach.

(2) Polar coordinate positioning

The triangle-based approach can be applied in most cases. However, in some specific cases, the number of anchor points is limited, or existing anchor points cannot form a triangle with high confidence. To solve the positioning problem in these cases, a polar coordinate-based method is proposed. In addition to the directional relationship between RX and anchor point, it is now also necessary to obtain the distance between them. To obtain such information, the ToF should be measured using a method similar to that described in the reflector positioning method above. Using the obtained AoA and ToF information of one anchor point, the location of RX can be estimated by the above equation (2). When there are multiple anchor points, the process may be repeated several times and then averaged.

Through the description of the technical scheme, the embodiment of the invention provides a non-line-of-sight scene millimeter wave positioning system with a plurality of controllable reflectors coexisting. By the positioning system, higher positioning accuracy can be obtained. Meanwhile, the two-stage reflector discovery scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention can realize logarithmic time complexity level under the situation based on a rapid beam alignment algorithm, and further can realize rapid millimeter wave positioning. And furthermore, the problem of inaccurate anchor points is solved through a confidence-based coordinate fusion scheme, so that the positioning precision is effectively improved.

Further, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the method and system provided by the embodiment of the present invention, a lot of experiments are also performed. The result shows that the method and the system can realize centimeter-level precision in the environment of 10 meters by 10 meters under the non-line-of-sight scene. The positioning accuracy is improved by 50% on average and 20% in the worst case compared to existing solutions based on ambient reflections. The positioning time of the method and system is reduced by 18 times, 37 times and 40 times when there are 1, 4 and 7 reflectors, respectively, compared to the baseline using exhaustive search.

The above description is only for the preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and any changes or substitutions that can be easily conceived by those skilled in the art within the technical scope of the present invention are included in the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.