Uplink Joint Positioning and Synchronization in Cell-Free Deployments with Radio Stripes
Paper in proceeding, 2023

Radio stripes (RSs) is an emerging technology in beyond 5G and 6G wireless networks to support the deployment of cell-free architectures. In this paper, we investigate the potential use of RSs to enable joint positioning and synchronization in the uplink channel at sub-6 GHz bands. The considered scenario consists of a single-antenna user equipment (UE) that communicates with a network of multiple-antenna RSs distributed over a wide area. The UE is assumed to be unsynchronized to the RSs network, while individual RSs are time- and phase-synchronized. We formulate the problem of joint estimation of position, clock offset and phase offset of the UE and derive the corresponding maximum-likelihood (ML) estimator, both with and without exploiting carrier phase information. To gain fundamental insights into the achievable performance, we also conduct a Fisher information analysis and inspect the theoretical lower bounds numerically. Simulation results demonstrate that promising positioning and synchronization performance can be obtained in cell-free architectures supported by RSs, revealing at the same time the benefits of carrier phase exploitation through phase-synchronized RSs.

Radio stripes

positioning

synchronization

cell-free massive MIMO

carrier phase

sub-6 GHz

Author

Alessio Fascista

Universitaà Del Salento

Benjamin J.B. Deutschmann

Technische Universität Graz

Musa Furkan Keskin

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Thomas Wilding

Technische Universität Graz

Angelo Coluccia

Universitaà Del Salento

K. Witrisal

Technische Universität Graz

E. Leitinger

Technische Universität Graz

G. Seco-Granados

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB)

Henk Wymeersch

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

2023 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops: Sustainable Communications for Renaissance, ICC Workshops 2023

1330-1336
9798350333077 (ISBN)

2023 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops, ICC Workshops 2023
Rome, Italy,

Hardware-aware Integrated Localization and Sensing for Communication Systems

Swedish Research Council (VR) (2022-03007), 2023-01-01 -- 2026-12-31.

Subject Categories

Telecommunications

Communication Systems

Signal Processing

DOI

10.1109/ICCWORKSHOPS57953.2023.10283650

More information

Latest update

3/28/2024