Resolution-Enhanced and Accurate Cascade Time-Reversal Operator Decomposition (C-DORT) Approach for Positioning Radiated Passive Intermodulation Sources

Abstract

Attaining a high-resolution and accurate location for a radiated passive intermodulation source (R-PIMS) has been an increasingly interesting problem in modern multi-carrier wireless communication systems. For precisely positioning multiple closely spaced R-PIMSs, a novel imaging method called cascade decomposition of time-reversal operator (C-DORT) was developed. C-DORT constructs a new spectrum calculation by normalizing and multiplying the pseudo-spectrum at each sampled frequency together. The cascade process focuses the pseudo-spectrum at R-PIMS positions to form a highly brightened spectrum peak and to suppress the remained pseudo-spectrum to approximately zero, contributing to distinguishing the closely spaced R-PIMSs. The positioning performance of the positioning resolution, pseudo-spectrum width, positioning accuracy, and imaging robustness are analyzed by numerical simulations. Compared with the conventional central frequency decomposition of time-reversal operator (CF-DORT) and the time domain decomposition of time-reversal operator (TD-DORT) methods, the multiple R-PIMSs, spaced at a distance of diffraction limit, which is the spacing of 1/2 of a wavelength, are distinguished effectively in C-DORT. Additionally, the cross-range pseudo-spectrum full width at half maxima (CRPS-FWHM) is suppressed to the width of 1/4 of a wavelength by multiplication to improve the cross-range resolution in C-DORT. In addition, accurate positioning is obtained by providing the approximately zero positioning root mean square estimation (RMSE) at an SNR ranging from 0 dB to 10 dB. The results show that the proposed C-DORT improves the positioning accuracy and enhances the positioning resolution for locating an R-PIMS.