Underwater TDOA Peer-to-Peer Localization Based on Channel Feature Matching

This article proposes a robust peer-to-peer localization scheme using compact arrays in underwater time-varying channels. The method combines two-way ranging and the time difference of arrival (TDOA) positioning technique, utilizing three elements of the compact array to achieve accurate localization. To better adapt to time-varying channels caused by the inherent changes in the water medium, and improve localization accuracy, this article adopts a TDOA correction method based on channel feature matching using the correlation between the received signals of different elements of the compact array. This method combines line-of-sight with non-line-of-sight information of multipath signals to correct the TDOA. The specific localization steps are as follows. First, multipath features are extracted from the single-frame received signal of an array element through the Savitzky-Golay filter and dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm. Then, based on the obtained multipath features of multiframe signals, hierarchical clustering is used to extract the channel features from the perspective of the current array element. Finally, the target position is estimated by combining two-way ranging with the TDOA values corrected by DTW from different array elements. The accuracy and stability of the proposed method are validated through simulations and pool experiments by comparing it with the traditional methods.