Software-Defined Radio Network Positioning Technology Design. Transmitter Development

Software-Defined Radio (SDR) and Model-Based Design (MBD) are well known research and development (R&D) tools for rapid technology prototyping. Pioneering SDR hardware is Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) boards from Ettus Research, and one of the most popular MBD software is Communications Toolbox from Mathworks with USRP Hardware Driver (UHD) support. World-wide spread and relative accessibility of SDR and MBD hardware-software revolutionized not only communication, but also network positioning technologies design and prototyping over the last decade. Increased interest to User Equipment (UE) location estimation is observed since 3GPP Release 9, which introduced Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA) in LTE with Positioning Reference Signals (PRS). Further evolution of PRS is motivated by the transition to 5G and beyond. The aim of SDR network positioning technology design is to substantiate physical layer technical solutions for UE positioning accuracy improvement in existing and emerging networks through laboratory measurements. Existing works focus mainly on receiver design for primary measurements accumulation and do not consider transmitter design. Significance of proposed approach lies in the possibility to investigate PRS transmitter pattern on primary measurement precision. The contribution of research is PRS transmitter development with USRP SDR hardware and Matlab software and its laboratory validation.