IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO.

5, OCTOBER 2009 845

Multi-Channel Distance Measurement With

IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) Devices
Markus Pichler, Member, IEEE, Stefan Schwarzer, Student Member, IEEE, Andreas Stelzer, Member, IEEE, and
Martin Vossiek, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—The addition of positioning capabilities to low-cost

communications such as IEEE 802.15.4 compliant (ZigBee) net-
works can open up interesting markets, in particular if existing
hardware and standard communications packets can be used for
this purpose. High-precision localization requires large transmis-
sion bandwidths and thus the use of multiple frequency-channels.
In the presence of oscillator frequency uncertainty the coherent
synthesis of individual measurements poses a challenge. This paper
proposes a particular frequency-hopping and signal processing Fig. 1. One-dimensional measurement setup with two transmitters and two re-
scheme by which most transmitter and receiver frequency-errors ceivers. Transmitter T with unknown position shaded gray.
can be eliminated in signal processing. Measurements show that
high precision distance estimation with errors down to a few cm
can be achieved. industrial buildings the utilization of large signal bandwidths
Index Terms—Frequency hopping, local positioning, sensor net- is essential. This paper presents a method to measure positions
works, ZigBee. of commercial ZigBee transponders. Coherent combination of
measurements from multiple frequency channels allows the
synthesis of a large total bandwidth from individual narrow-
I. INTRODUCTION
band measurements. Despite clock frequency uncertainty in

P OSITIONING of communications devices is a topic

recently receiving great attention. Locating sensors
within a network can provide an additional value to existing
ZigBee transmitters, accurate distance estimates are obtained.
Although due to a specific frequency-hopping sequence not
directly compatible to the ZigBee or WirelessHART standards,
systems and open up new sensor applications. As low-power,
the advantage of the proposed method is the possibility to
low-cost standardized solution, IEEE 802.15.4 devices are
easily augment low-cost, mass-market communications chips
increasingly used in wireless networks for sensing and con-
that serve as ZigBee or WirelessHART nodes with positioning
trol purposes. IEEE 802.15.4 is used as the PHY-layer for
capabilities in a second mode of operation.
different communications standards such as WirelessHART
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the hardware
or ZigBee. Several approaches for locating ZigBee devices
setup and the positioning principle are described. Section III
have been published that rely, e.g., on received signal strength
discusses signal correlation in time- and frequency domain and
[1] or round-trip-time-of-flight [2] measurement. The simul-
the ambiguity function that is relevant for signal processing in
taneous demands of low power consumption and integration
the presence of oscillator frequency errors. In Section IV, the
in existing networks using off-the-shelf low-cost hardware
principles of combining measurement data from multiple chan-
while providing high-precision location information still pose
nels are outlined. Section V derives a mathematical model for
a challenge to systems design. In particular in indoor environ-
transmitted and received signal, followed by the proposition of a
ments with perturbing multi-path wave propagation such as
channel frequency hopping sequence particularly suited for po-
sitioning purposes in Section VI. Simulation and measurement
Manuscript received July 01, 2008; revised May 19, 2009. Current version results are presented in Sections VII and VIII, respectively, and
published October 21, 2009. This work was supported in part by the Kplus pro-
gram and the COMET K2 Center “Austrian Center of Competence in Mecha- a conclusion is drawn in Section IX.
tronics (ACCM),” funded by the Austrian Federal government, the Federal State
Upper Austria, and the scientific partners of ACCM. The associate editor coor- II. POSITIONING PRINCIPLE
dinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Dr.
Rene Landry. For our intended purpose of locating a transponder in a mea-
M. Pichler is with the Linz Center of Mechatronics GmbH, 4040 Linz, Austria surement scenario, the time-difference of arrival (TDOA) posi-
(e-mail: markus.pichler@lcm.at).
S. Schwarzer is with the Siemens Corporate Technology, 81739 Munich, Ger-
tioning principle has been shown to be an adequate approach in
many (e-mail: stefan.schwarzer.ext@siemens.com). different commercial applications (e.g., [3]). In such systems,
A. Stelzer is with the Institute for Communications and Information Engi- there is usually at least one transmitter placed at a fixed refer-
neering, Johannes Kepler University, 4040 Linz, Austria (e-mail: a.stelzer@icie.
jku.at).
ence position, that—along with the transmitter whose position
M. Vossiek is with the Institute of Electrical Information Technology, is of interest—transmits signals to a number of fixed base sta-
Clausthal University, 38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany (e-mail: tions, whose positions are also known. An example of a setup
vossiek@iei.tu-clausthal.de). with two transmitters and two receivers for one-dimensional po-
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. sition measurement is shown in Fig. 1; by adding more base sta-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTSP.2009.2030935 tions the setup can be extended to two or three dimensions [4].
1932-4553/$26.00 © 2009 IEEE

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846 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2009

Fig. 2. (a) Transmitter and (b) receiver building blocks and signals. Building blocks in the transmitter are contained in a commercial Texas Instruments CC2420
IEEE 802.15.4 radio chip with the exception of an external clock source and the antenna. Receiver consists of an amplifier, local oscillator, mixer, and a digital
storage oscilloscope or analog-to-digital converter. Microcontroller and signal processor in transmitter and receiver are not shown.

performed on a PC or, in the current revised implementation that

incorporates the full receiver structure on a single board, in an
FPGA.

III. CORRELATION IN TIME AND FREQUENCY DOMAIN

Fig. 3. Transmitter photograph with Texas Instruments CC2420 IEEE 802.15.4
radio chip, microcontroller, and chip antenna.
The unknown quantity is the location of transmitter
can be determined from the distance
where is the speed of light in the medium, the total time-
difference of arrival, and the individual time of flight de-
lays experienced by signals transmitted by and received by .
The positions of , , and have to be known in advance.
As will be shown in a later section, the relevant information can
be derived from estimates of the time of arrival of individual
signals in the two receivers. A main advantage of the TDOA
method in this form its simplicity with respect to synchroniza-
tion between transponders [5].
Transmitter and receiver are designed according to the block
diagram in Fig. 2, with appropriate labels for the derivation of
signals and errors in Section V, and designations and to
indicate the respective system. The transmitter shown in part (a)
consists of the Texas Instruments CC2420 IEEE 802.15.4 radio
chip clocked by an external 16-MHz quartz, a microcontroller
and a chip antenna. A transmitter photograph is shown in Fig. 3.
Data is generated in baseband packets according to the IEEE
802.15.4 specification, and then upconverted to radio frequency
by mixing with the signal from a synthesizer, where one out of
16 specified channels can be used for every data packet. A single
quartz clock is the frequency reference for all building blocks.
In the current setup, each heterodyne receiver is realized by
a local oscillator, a mixer, and a sampling stage, with indepen-
dent frequency sources. The received signal is downconverted
to an intermediate frequency, and the full frequency band from
2400 to 2483.5 MHz is covered by the discretization, so that sig-
nals transmitted in multiple channels can be received simulta-
neously. However, in an optimized design only single channels
would have to be sampled with the use of a variable local oscil-
lator frequency for downconversion, thus reducing the sampling
rate to twice the single-channel bandwidth. Signal processing is
For time of flight estimation performed in radar and posi-
tioning systems usually either a pulsed, or a frequency-modu-
which lated continuous wave (FMCW) transmit signal is employed.
The problem of estimating the instant in time at which a signal
is received by a system is frequently solved using least-squares
parameter estimation of the received signal with respect to a
(1) given signal model [6]. In many cases, an equivalent approach
is to use correlation of the received signal and a signal gener-
ated in the receiver, in combination with a maximum search.
In pulse- or time-based measurements this correlation can be
performed directly in time-domain, in FMCW radar a multi-
plication in frequency-domain is used as an equivalent opera-
tion. It is by no means imperative that the signals used for posi-
tioning follow a particular curve. Necessary conditions are that
the transmitted signals are known to the receiver, that a partic-
ular bandwidth is covered in frequency-domain, and that the sig-
nals offer favorable correlation properties. Consequently, there
are positioning systems using pseudo-noise signals, or signals
designed for communications [7].
For the case of arbitrary transmit signals we define a least-
squares parameter estimation criterion as
(2)
where is the number of available samples, is the discrete-
time received signal, is the ideal signal for the transmitted
data sequence, and the components of the parameter vector
are a complex-valued amplitude factor including attenuation
or amplification and phase shift, sampling interval , shift in
time , and shift in frequency . Estimates of the parameters
are to be chosen so that the optimization criterion attains
its minimum. Note that by including parameters and , the
formulation of the optimization criterion covers the technically
inevitable case of different frequency-references in transmitter
and receiver.

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PICHLER et al.: MULTI-CHANNEL DISTANCE MEASUREMENT WITH IEEE 802.15.4 (ZIGBEE) DEVICES 847

As the amplitude enters the criterion linearly, (2) is a energy and can be omitted if is known. In this formula-
separable optimization problem, and may therefore be esti- tion, is equivalent to the ambiguity function that is known
mated independently from the other parameters as [6] in radar signal processing, where it is used for estimation of the
time-of-travel and Doppler shift experienced by the transmitted
signals [8]–[10]. Typically a distinction is drawn between nar-
rowband and wideband ambiguity functions where the signal is
either only shifted in frequency, or stretched along the time axis.
In the case of uncertain oscillator frequencies in transmitter and
receiver in combination with frequency downconversion, as it is
present in the proposed positioning system, both shifting along
(3) the frequency-axis and stretching in time occurs. These effects
are covered by parameters and , respectively.
As indicated earlier, the numerators in (4) take the form of a
discrete-time correlation of the two signals, where for constant
which after insertion in (2) leads to the equivalent problem of and the first expression is a correlation in time-domain
maximizing criterion given as with parameter , and for constant and the second ex-
pression is a correlation in frequency-domain with parameter
. From a different point of view, the first numerator takes the
form of a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of the complex-con-
jugate product of two signals for constant and with fre-
quency-parameter , the second numerator the form of an in-
verse DFT for constant and with time-parameter . Since
neither or will usually take integer values, the DFT formu-
lation offers a convenient means of estimating either parameter
with arbitrary precision by using zero-padding [11], if the other
parameters are held fixed. Instead of a multidimensional opti-
mization for , , and , an alternating iterative approach
using the DFT for the estimation of and , and (if neces-
(4) sary) an optimization for , can be used.
For a ZigBee transmit signal limited in time to 32 µs or 64
chips, zero-padded by a factor of four, and limited to a band-
where and are given as
width of 8 MHz, the ambiguity function is shown in Fig. 4(a).
The stretch in time-domain described by is assumed to be
(5) known, so that depends on the time- and frequency-shift pa-
rameters and only. A smooth peak decaying after four
(6) samples due to the zero-padding factor of approximately 4 in ei-
ther domain indicates that an iterative maximization will likely
and are therefore the (discrete) Fourier transforms of and converge to the global maximum for a reasonable starting point.
, respectively. For (3) and (4) to hold, we have assumed the For this purpose, a modified optimization criterion may be
following: used, in which parameter is eliminated, so that as a first step
• for ; of iterative correlation an initial value for can be found. Using
• for ; the absolute value of spectra and defining signals and as
which are two demands that strictly cannot be met simultane-
ously. By adding adequate margins to the discretized signals in
time and frequency domain, that is, by choosing a sampling rate
far in excess of the signal bandwidth, and a sampling duration
much longer than the packet length; however, the assumptions
hold to a good approximation. Then it is ensured that a shift by
in time-domain and a shift by in frequency-domain do not
(9)
shift the measured signal outside the observation window, and
it can be assumed that due to the conservation of signal energy
allows us to write as
(7)
(8)

so that (3) and (4) hold. (10)

The modified criterion depends on a reduced set of param-
eters . Denominators of in (4) are proportional to signal

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848 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2009
Fig. 4. Approximate normalized ambiguity function for a ZigBee transmit signal limited in time and frequency domain with a zero-padding factor of approxi-
mately four in both domains. Criterion (a) J for time- and frequency-shift estimation, and (b) J~ for frequency-shift estimation only.
whose maximum for may be used for solver initializa-
tion. Fig. 4(b) shows the corresponding ambiguity function
depending only on the frequency shift parameter. With this
initialization approach, an appropriate starting point for the
iterative maximization of criterion could be found in all
simulated or measured situations. Due to the favorable correla-
tion properties of IEEE 802.15.4 packets in time and frequency
domain, the search for a starting point has thus been found to
be an uncritical aspect of the iterative correlation.
Note that the DFT-based approach of maximizing the ambi-
guity function may be replaced by other time-delay and -stretch
estimators; for further reference, the reader is referred to [12].
IV. WIDEBAND POSITION MEASUREMENT
It is well-known that the resolution of range estimates in radar
and positioning systems is inversely proportional to the used
signal bandwidth. Very roughly, the minimum distance be-
tween two objects below which they cannot be discriminated is
given by [9]
(11)
with angular frequency bandwidth in rad/s . While (11) does
not consider factors such as noise level or the particular esti-
mator that is used, it can be used as a general rule of thumb. The
minimum resolution of a positioning- or radar-system also has a
direct influence on the bias of range estimates if multipath-prop-
agation is involved. In environments containing large, reflective
objects, such as in industrial buildings with metal walls, parts
of the traveling electromagnetic wave usually reach the receiver
by reflection off a surface, and therefore on a slightly longer
path. With limited transmission bandwidth, such perturbations
interfere with the signal on the direct path, and alter the derived
range estimates.
Related to the minimum object distance by the number of
samples taken over the bandwidth in frequency-domain is the
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maximum object distance that can be computed from the
frequency-domain spacing of measurements as
(12)
For a given bandwidth , an increase of the number of sam-
pling points will therefore likewise increase the unambiguous
measurement range.
In the 2.4-GHz band, the IEEE 802.15.4 standard [13] defines
direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) and offset quadrature
phase-shift keying (OQPSK) with half-sine pulse shaping and a
chip rate of 2 Mchip/s as modulation scheme. There are 16 avail-
able data channels that are spaced MHz
apart between 2.405 and 2.480 GHz, resulting in a total band-
width of MHz. Data is transferred in
packets of limited duration (e.g., 1280 chips), each of which
may be transmitted in a different frequency-channel, thus time-
and frequency-division multiple access (TDMA/FDMA) is
provided for. Fig. 5 shows an exemplary sequence of ZigBee
packets consecutively transmitted in different channels in
time and frequency domain. Owing to the chip rate, the total
two-sided signal bandwidth usable for positioning in a single
channel is approximately 2 MHz, as indicated by vertical lines
in Fig. 5(b).
From the foregoing discussion it can be concluded that to
obtain low-bias range estimates from a microwave positioning
system, a large system bandwidth is required. A bandwidth of
2 MHz when used for range estimation corresponds to a reso-
lution of approximately m, which is hardly satisfac-
tory in any application where an even roughly accurate range
estimate is required, as any signal path differing from the main
path by less than 75 m in length will inevitably perturb the range
estimate. Note that this value is the theoretical raw resolution
without the application of any multipath mitigation techniques.
An approach to solve this problem is the utilization of not only
a single, but multiple measurements at different center frequen-
cies for each range estimate, to increase the total signal band-
PICHLER et al.: MULTI-CHANNEL DISTANCE MEASUREMENT WITH IEEE 802.15.4 (ZIGBEE) DEVICES 849

Fig. 5. Simulation of a sequence of 16 consecutively transmitted IEEE 802.15.4 data packets in different channels with unity amplitude. (a) Transmitted packets
s with a length of 1280 chips in time-domain with packet index p, and (b) corresponding signal spectrum S with channels spaced 5 MHz between 2405 and
2480 MHz in frequency-domain with channel index c. Vertical lines in part (b) indicate the 2-MHz bandwidth in single channels.

Fig. 6. Correlation of ZigBee data packets J normalized to the ideal optimization criterion J for a multipath scenario at (a), (b) two different zoom levels. Solid
line: multiple correlations of single-channel measurements, individual peak locations and arithmetic mean. Dashed line: single correlation of multiple-channel
measurement, and  peak location. True peak location and location of perturbing peak.

width. With a total bandwidth of about 80 MHz as the differ-
ence between highest and lowest signal frequency, the achiev-
able resolution can be improved by a factor of approximately 40
to m; note that since resolution is also influenced
by many other factors such as signal shape, utilized bandwidth,
etc., this rule of thumb may serve only as a very rough estimate.
Since single measurements can only cover a single channel, a
strategy for combining individual measurements to an improved
position estimate is required.
A. Combination of Final Range Estimates
The simplest way of combining measurements from multiple
channels is to derive a range estimate from each channel’s raw
data from the total TDOA, and compute the arithmetic mean
from the 16 intermediary range results. While being easy to im-
plement, this approach does not yield optimum results, since
bias caused by multi-path wave propagation will change from
channel to channel, but is unlikely to cancel over the full signal
bandwidth.
As an illustrative example, we use a simulation of a posi-
tioning scenario with a direct path of length m and
amplitude 1, and an unwanted path of 14 m and amplitude 0.4.
Fig. 6 shows the optimization criterion (that is, the correlation
in time-domain) normalized to the maximum value of the ideal
single-path criterion over distance . The dashed lines rep-
resent the correlation peak for each of the 16 channels. Due to
the limited bandwidth in single channels, the peak is broad and
its maximum varies heavily with channel center frequency, as it
can be observed in part (b) of the figure. This variation in both
amplitude and range is due to the interaction between the direct
path and the unwanted path causing constructive or destructive
interference at different center frequencies. The standard devi-
ation of individual results is 4.112 m, the arithmetic mean is in
the vicinity of the true peak location, but has a large bias of ap-
proximately 237 mm.
B. Coherent Combination of Channel Data
Much higher accuracies than with the simple approach can
be achieved by combining the individual measurements before
obtaining a range result, so that instead of averaging over 16
measurements with an individual bandwidth of 2 MHz, the
full 80 MHz bandwidth is exploited. A necessary condition for
the application of this method is that signals are synthesized
and processed in a way that phase relationships are preserved
even in the presence of (unknown) frequency inaccuracies. In
Section VI we will propose a frequency-hopping scheme that
allows this demand to be met.
When a single signal is composed of a coherent superposition
of individual measurements, the peak in the optimization crite-
rion takes a much narrower shape, as can be seen in the solid
line in Fig. 6. In this case, the unwanted path at 14 m is well
separated from the main peak, and therefore hardly influences
the ranging result, reducing the bias to only 2 mm. Although we
will propose an evaluation approach that does not require the

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850
Fig. 7. Timing relations in transmitter and receiver. " Vertical arrows indicate zero crossings of the respective signals, labeled with number of zero crossings since
zero phase.
relatively memory- and time-consuming synthesis of a single
signal from multiple measurements in different receivers, this
example should illustrate the advantage of coherent signal pro-
cessing over the simple averaging approach in achievable reso-
lution and bias.
C. Comparison to GNSS and GPS
To get an idea of the multipath performance of the proposed
positioning system, it can be compared to Global Navigation
Satellite Systems (GNSS) and to Global Positioning System
(GPS) in particular. The civil GPS carrier L1 at 1575.42 MHz
comprises one 1.023 MHz Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
(DSSS) code per satellite with Binary Phase Shift Keying
(BPSK) modulation and a fixed length of 1023 bins each. The
most common approach for locking onto these codes is sliding
correlation of the received signal with all known satellite codes
in time domain. A larger number of correlators can reduce the
time-to-first-fix and increase accuracy and reliability in tracking
scenarios [14]. Approaches based on Fourier transform have
been implemented as well, leading to very short fix times and
highest accuracy [15]. They can be used for benchmarking
purposes and seem to be helpful for the exploration of GNSS
indoor positioning. Without multipaths, the accuracy of civil
GPS can be very good, especially if Differential GPS (DGPS)
is used for minimizing the ionospheric and tropospheric in-
fluences in the region of operation [16]. For correlations in
time domain the accuracy can be in the range of decimeters.
Additional carrier-phase tracking at one (L1) or two frequen-
cies (L1 and L2) can even further increase accuracy to the
millimeter range for static scenarios [17]. With all progress
in GNSS research over the past three decades, the resolution
of multipaths superimposing the direct path is still limited
to a certain amount. The 3-dB bandwidth of the L1 codes is
approximately 2 MHz, which results in a multipath resolution
capability of 75 m according to (11). This manifests in large
errors while navigating in street canyons or deep valleys, espe-
cially if the multipath power is of the same magnitude as the
direct path power [18]. Future modifications to GPS and other
GNSS will use broader signals and multiple (sub) carriers for
an enhancement in multi-path resolution [19], [20].
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IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2009
V. TRANSMITTED AND RECEIVED SIGNALS
As a mathematical basis for the following proposition of a
signal generation and evaluation strategy, we derive expres-
sions for the transmitted and received signals in this section.
Positions of all transmitters and receivers are assumed to be
constant for the sake of simplicity. The proposed positioning
method has been shown to be applicable to moving targets
also, but the mathematical derivation of this case is considered
outside the scope of this work. We allow slightly imperfect
frequency references, that is, all oscillators are assumed to ex-
hibit an unknown but constant relative frequency error. Note
that frequency errors in different oscillators are independent
from each other. Since we describe signals originating from
multiple transmitters that are received by multiple receivers, in
accordance with the foregoing section and the block diagram
in Fig. 2 we use a notation with superscripts , , and
to denote the appropriate transmitter and receiver .
That is, quantities occurring only in transmitter are denoted
by superscript , quantities that relate to transmitter and
receiver are denoted by , etc. Furthermore, to in-
dicate the respective signal source or affiliation, subscripts
(transmitter clock), (chip rate/data), (radio frequency),
(local oscillator), (sampling clock), (mixer output),
(baseband), and (final, after decimation) are used. Sig-
nals and quantities themselves are denoted by (signal),
(angular frequency), (phase), (period), (time, instants
of rising signal edges), and (delay). To support the math-
ematical derivation, timing relations of all relevant signals in
transmitter and receiver are illustrated in Fig. 7. The instants
of rising clock edges or signal crossings are indicated by
vertical arrows along the time axes (for higher frequencies, not
all zero crossings are shown), the number to the right of each
arrow denotes the number of zero crossings that have occurred
since zero phase of the respective signal.
In the ZigBee transmitter chip that is used in our setup, all
frequencies are derived from a single quartz with a nominal
frequency of MHz and clock period
ns. Any relative quartz frequency error will there-
fore identically affect all timing relations in the transmitter. An
PICHLER et al.: MULTI-CHANNEL DISTANCE MEASUREMENT WITH IEEE 802.15.4 (ZIGBEE) DEVICES 851

expression for the instantaneous clock phase in transmitter RF carrier. According to IEEE 802.15.4 channel assignments,
is then given by the nominal RF center angular frequency in channel is
MHz for , which corre-
(13) sponds to a signal period of . To derive an
expression for the RF signal phase we must consider an offset
with respect to . Similarly to the data clock, the RF signal
is derived from the main quartz clock and will therefore have its
where is the (unknown) phase of the clock oscillator at zero phase at a fixed phase offset relative to a particular signal
, the relative oscillator frequency error, the edge of the main clock occurring edges after . There-
true oscillator frequency, and the clock period. Assuming fore, the RF phase in the th packet that is transmitted in channel
a sinusoidal or equivalent rectangular signal, the 0th rising edge is given by
occurs at , so that , as
indicated on the first axis in Fig. 7. Note that the definition of
and of the 0th zero crossing is arbitrary, but once chosen,
it must remain unchanged.
As a clocked process, the data generation in the digital mod-
ulator will have a fixed phase relationship with the signal from (16)
the main quartz. We describe the data chip clock with nom-
inal angular frequency MHz and period The true signal frequency and period, respectively, are
ns, whose zero-crossings mark the start of each
DSSS chip in the th transmitted data packet, in terms of its and , the initial phase is . The timing of the RF
phase . The 0th chip will then be generated after a phase signal for upconversion is found on the third axis in Fig. 7. Since
offset relative to an unknown edge of the main transmitter for every channel an unknown but unique method is applied to
clock. Mathematically, the data clock phase may therefore be synthesize the RF signal from the main clock, the initial phase
written as depends on the channel, but not directly on the trans-
mitter or the data sequence.
Upconversion of the baseband signal to RF in the mixer may
mathematically be described by a multiplication. For simplicity
we use a complex notation and omit signal components on the
negative frequency axis. For a sequence of packets with index
(14) , where data sequence and channel
are used in the respective packets, the total transmitted signal is
In (14), the number of quartz clock edges between and given by
the reference edge for generation of the th data packet is de-
noted by , and and are the true chip frequency
and period, respectively. These relationships are indicated on (17)
the second axis of Fig. 7. Note that is independent of both
the transmitter and the actual data. Note that the shift in time between consecutive packets is de-
Before upconversion to radio frequency in the transmitter, scribed by choosing integers and appropriately.
the nominal generated signal for a particular data sequence As we assume a static setup, the transmitted signal experi-
starting at at the output of the filter is in the absence ences a constant delay during propagation from trans-
of error. Due to the frequency deviation and a shift in time for mitter to receiver , as indicated on the fourth axis in Fig. 7.
consecutively generated packets, however, the nominal signal In the absence of loss, noise, distortion, and multipath propaga-
appears stretched and shifted, so that the true data signal for the tion, the received signal is therefore given as a delayed copy of
th packet in which data sequence is transmitted is given the transmitted signal
by
(18)

In the current receiver setup, there are different frequency

(15) sources for the local oscillator and the sampling clock, and we
therefore treat these signals as independent with different rela-
This notation is easily verified by finding that for every instant tive frequency errors. Downconversion to an intermediate fre-
, where in (14) reaches an integer multiple of corre- quency is performed by multiplication with a local oscillator
sponds to an integer multiple of in the argument of signal with constant ideal frequency and (e.g.,
in (15), with a phase corresponding to an argument MHz), phase offset at , and a rela-
of 0 of in (15). tive frequency error , so that the phase is given by
The baseband data signal is upconverted to one of the 16
RF-channels by multiplication of the baseband signal with an (19)

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852 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2009

as seen on the fifth axis in Fig. 7, and the downconverted signal First, the signal is shifted to baseband by multiplication with
in complex notation by an appropriate discrete-time complex exponential with phase

(20) (25)

Downconversion is followed by sampling the signal at a rate that is, we obtain the baseband-signal as
larger than twice the total bandwidth, to facilitate digital pro-
cessing. Expression (20) describes the signal from as it is (26)
available at the mixer output in . In reality, the receivers will
Thereafter, decimation from to samples per packet is
receive signals from two or more transmitters simultaneously. If
easily performed for by taking every th
the transmission sequence is appropriately designed so that each
sample out of , leading to the final decimated signal
channel is only occupied by a single receiver at all times, a sepa-
ration of signals in both time and frequency domain is possible. (27)
We can therefore describe the finite-time signal in discrete-time
as a function of packet index and samples For MHz, the decimation process in-
within the packet, where the duration incorporates a single troduces only little error, since to a good approximation data
data packet. Sampling of the continuous-time signal occurs at packets are time-limited to , and the data bandwidth is well
instants contained within the channel spacing.
After insertion of all relevant signals into (27), we obtain a
signal of the form
(21)

(28)
as indicated on the last axis in Fig. 7, which corresponds to a
sampling clock with phase with parameters

(29)
(22)

ideal frequency , frequency error , true frequency and

period and , respectively, and initial phase de-
scribing the instant at which the first sample is taken from the
downconverted signal. The sampled signal is then given by
(30)
(23)

or, after insertion, by

(31)

(24)

Note that the sum in (17) is eliminated by the separation in time-

domain, so that for each index , the signal in (24) covers
a single packet.
For further processing, it is advisable to reduce the com-
plexity by decimation of the signal to a reasonable sampling
rate. For each index only a single packet in a single channel
is contained in , and the sampling rate can therefore be
reduced to the total channel bandwidth. Unlike the real-valued (32)
signal that is available to the processing stage in reality, there are that may be estimated from each measurement by correlation
no components on the negative frequency axis in our complex- of and in time and frequency domain using (3)
valued model. An equivalent signal, however, may be easily ob- and (4). The relevant information we get from this lengthy re-
tained from the real-valued samples by application of the dis- sult is that the desired quantity, the delay , is contained in
crete Hilbert-transformation [21]. two parameters of : In , where it expresses the fact

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PICHLER et al.: MULTI-CHANNEL DISTANCE MEASUREMENT WITH IEEE 802.15.4 (ZIGBEE) DEVICES 853

that the data has been delayed from transmission to reception,

and in , causing a constant phase shift in the decimated
signal proportional to the channel center frequency . In
the following, we will exploit the latter property for high-preci-
sion distance estimation.

VI. FREQUENCY-HOPPING SEQUENCE

Besides the desired delays , the expressions (28)–(32)
for contain a number of unknown terms, in particular the
various frequency errors and initial phases. The direct extrac-
tion of the propagation delay from a single measurement of ei-
ther the time-domain delay or the phase-shift is therefore not
possible. We therefore propose a unique frequency-hopping se-
quence and evaluation strategy for the coherent combination of
multiple measurements, so that almost all unknown error terms
in the final ranging result are eliminated, and high-precision dis-
tance measurement with the full available bandwidth is possible.
To facilitate said evaluation method and greatly simplify the
relevant expressions, we must formulate two demands that have
to be met by the transmitter. First, it is necessary that for any
given channel, the relative offset between the RF signal phase
and the data clock is constant. For transmissions of identical
data packets in identical channels this means that the actually
transmitted signal has the same shape. The delay between the
reference edge for the data packet and the RF signal in
transmitter clock cycles therefore only depends on the channel
of transmission, but neither on the transmitter, nor on the packet
index, that is
(33)
Second, the data packets must be transmitted in constant inter-
vals with a fixed number of main transmitter clock edges be-
tween consecutive data packets. If the transmitter clock edge
for the 0th data packet is determined by , then there must
be a new packet transmitted every edges, or
(34)
Both demands can be met with the commercial Texas Instru-
ments CC2420 transmitter chip used in our setup due to the RF
frequency synthesis via an integer PLL causing deterministic
phase relationships, and the controllability of the exact instant
of the start of each generated packet.
Under the stated assumptions, the adherence to a symmetric
frequency-hopping sequence will eliminate most error terms.
We therefore propose a scheme in which each of the two trans-
mitters uses every channel twice, where the two packets for each
channel and transmitter are distributed symmetrically in time
about the center of the total measurement. If there are trans-
mitted packets, then we demand that in transmitter channel
is used for packets and , while in transmitter
channel is used for packets and , or
Fig. 8. Possible frequency-hopping sequence of channels c used for trans-
mission of packet p by two transmitters T and T .
where identical channels are used by both transmitters, but in
different time slots
(36)
One possible frequency-hopping sequence according to this
scheme is illustrated in Fig. 8, where the signal sources are
indicated by squares with different shades of gray. All single
packet transmissions are distributed symmetrically in time
about the center of the measurement, which is indicated by
a dash-and-dot line. To minimize perturbations, the chan-
nels of transmission are chosen for maximum distance in
frequency-domain, so that in each time slot, there is a center
frequency difference of 40 MHz between packets from the two
transmitters. Note that this sequence only serves as an example;
the use of other sequences adhering to (35) and (36) is possible.
Furthermore, hopping sequences can be preassigned to trans-
mitters and therefore do not require any time to be computed.
For separation of individual packets in frequency and time
domain, a synchronization mechanism has to be employed.
Timing, however, is not critical as long as it is ensured that
packets from different transmitters in identical channels do not
overlap. One possible synchronization method that is used in a
prototype positioning system is described in Section VIII.
For two transmitters, two receivers, and two packets per
channel, there are eight delay and phase estimates and
available in each channel after completion of the se-
quence of measurements. To eliminate error terms, they may
be combined to total delay and phase terms and that
depend on the channel only as
(37)
and

(35) (38)

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854 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2009
Using the approximation
is valid if and , we get for the delay
insertion of (30) and (32) the simplified result
and for the total phase the expression
By inserting common error magnitudes of several to several
tens of ppm for quartz frequency deviations, we find that the
terms containing the desired delay are several orders of mag-
nitude larger than the remaining error terms. Note that
is ideally constant and proportional to the TDOA, and corre-
sponds to a combination of individual ranging results according
to Section IV-A. The phase is dependent on the channel
center frequency and therefore a function of the channel.
This direct proportionality is due to the coherent combination
of multiple measurements according to Section IV-B that is pos-
sible by virtue of the particular frequency-hopping sequence and
the formulated demands on signal generation. Note that the indi-
vidual phase measurement (32) depends on numerous unknown
error terms and on the packet index . Without calibration or
exact transmitter synchronization, these dependencies are to a
large part eliminated by the application of the frequency-hop-
ping scheme and the coherent combination of individual mea-
surements that we propose, so that finally, we obtain a phase
term proportional to channel index . An exact TDOA es-
timate can now be derived from the slope of the phase term
as a function of the respective channel , e.g., by a linear least
squares fit.
It has to be noted that phase can only be determined
modulo . If the phase slope of as a function of channel
exceeds , that is, if the range exceeds m,
the result becomes ambiguous with a periodicity of 15 m. In
this case, the TDOA result is used as an initial guess from
which the exact range is computed as the closest estimate of the
slope of [22].
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that VII. SIMULATIONS
after
To verify the performance of the proposed positioning
method and evaluate the effect of different perturbations quan-
titatively, simulations were carried out. ZigBee data packets
truncated to 50 µs were used as transmit signals, and a packet
repetition period of 625 µs was used. The sampling frequency
in the receivers was MHz, and packets
were limited in time to 128 µs and in frequency to a bandwidth
of 8 MHz according to the sampling rate reduction described
in Section V. Thereafter, a correlation with ideal synthetic
truncated ZigBee packets with a duration of 32 µs or 64 chips
was performed. To account for the unknown duration of the
measured signal, windowing in time-domain was used in the
correlation process. In Fig. 9 exemplary ideal [parts (a), (b)],
and simulated received signals [parts (c), (d)] are depicted in
(39) time [parts (a), (c)], and frequency domain [parts (b), (d)],
including the windowing with a Hann-window. From the total
time-difference of arrival and the slope of the signal phase
according to (39) and (40), respectively, estimates of the
total distance were computed using (1).
A. Multipath-Propagation
For evaluating the effects of multipath propagation, the sce-
nario depicted in Fig. 10 was considered. The two receivers
and were placed a distance of 10 m apart from each other,
and transmitter was placed in the center. Transmitter was
(40) moved to 199 positions spaced 2.5 cm between and , i.e.,
m m . A reflective wall was placed at a distance from
the linear setup that added a second, unwanted propagation path
to each combination of transmitter and receiver, which was at-
tenuated by 10 dB with respect to the direct path regardless of
. The wall distance was modified between 0.2 m and 25
m with a step size of 0.2 m.
Fig. 11 shows the absolute root mean square error (RMSE)
computed from the absolute error over all positions
of transponder for every wall distance . It can be noted that
after the curves for time- and for phase-based evaluation from
and , respectively, are similar for small wall distances,
they largely deviate for larger distances . This behavior can
also be observed in Fig. 12, where the corresponding RMSE
error curves are plotted as a function of transmitter distance at
exemplary wall distances points m and m.
For short perturbing paths the errors of phase- and delay-based
estimation show a relatively high correlation. For longer per-
turbing paths, the delay-based estimation error increases, while
the phase-based error remains relatively small and constant.
B. Noise Sensitivity
A simulation analysis on the sensitivity to noise was carried
out with a setup according to Fig. 1 with receivers placed 10 m
apart, and receivers placed 5 m apart, symmetrically about the
center. Discrete additive white Gaussian noise was applied to
the received signals with a power level of 0 to 9 dB below the
signal level during transmission before sampling rate reduction
from 250 MS/s to 8 MS/s, which corresponds to a noise level of
approximately 15 to 24 dB after sampling rate reduction.
PICHLER et al.: MULTI-CHANNEL DISTANCE MEASUREMENT WITH IEEE 802.15.4 (ZIGBEE) DEVICES 855

Fig. 9. Exemplary (a), (b) ideal, and (c), (d) measured truncated IEEE 802.15.4 signal in (a), (c) time, and (b), (d) frequency domain as used for simulations and
measurements. Gray line: signal before windowing; dotted line: Hann-window; dark line: signal after time-domain windowing.

Fig. 10. Simulation setup for the evaluation of multipath effects. A direct path
from T (solid line) and T (dashed line) to the receivers was superimposed by
an unwanted reflected path from T (dashed-dotted line) and T (dotted line) to
R and R .
Statistical evaluations of the absolute measurement error
are shown as box plot in Fig. 13 and given numerically in Table I,
where parts (a) give the values for estimates derived from ,
and parts (b) those for estimates from . A significant advan-
tage of the phase-based over the delay-based estimation can be
observed with a factor of approximately 50 independent of the
signal-to-noise ratio.
VIII. MEASUREMENTS
To verify the proposed method in real-world scenarios, mea-
surements were carried out. For achieving a rough synchro-
nization between data packets in time and to prevent overlap,
Fig. 11. Root mean square error (RMSE) of estimated versus true transponder
distance for delay-based (dashed line), and phase-based (solid line) estimation
over wall distance r in multi-path simulation. Exemplary points (dotted line)
for which the absolute estimation error  is plotted as a function of transmitter
distance r in Fig. 12.
the transmitter with known location was a dedicated master
that transmitted a trigger packet before the start of the mea-
surement sequence with a specified delay. Upon reception of
the trigger packet, the dedicated slave transmitter started its
own frequency-hopping sequence after the same delay so that a
rough synchronization with an accuracy of a few microseconds
was achieved. With the given parameterization of packets with
length 50 µs and a repetition period of 625 µs an overlap in time
could easily be prevented by this method.

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856 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2009

Fig. 12. Absolute estimation error  r^ for perturbing wall distances of (a), (b) 2.4 m, and (c), (d) 17.0 m for (a), (c) delay-based, and (b), (d) phase-based estimation
over transmitter distance r in multi-path simulation.

Fig. 13. Statistics of noise simulation errors for evaluation of (a) time shift n and (b) phase ' from 200 measurements at each signal-to-noise ratio 
between 0 and 9 dB. Shown are 25%, 50%, and 75% quartiles as box, full data range as whiskers.

TABLE I
STATISTICS OF NOISE SIMULATION ERRORS FOR EVALUATION OF (a) TIME SHIFT n AND (b) PHASE ' FROM 200 MEASUREMENTS AT EACH
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO  BETWEEN 0 AND 9 (dB). SAMPLE MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION (MEA, STD), 25%, 50%, AND 75% QUARTILES
(25Q, MED, 75Q), AND INTER-QUARTILE RANGE (IQR). ALL TABLE VALUES IN METERS

A. Outdoor Scenario
A measurement according to the system setup shown in Fig. 1
was carried out in an outdoor-environment in a small park out-
side an office building. A photograph of the measurement sce-
nario is shown in Fig. 14(a). It can be observed that while there
are no prominent reflective objects in the direct vicinity of trans-
mitters or receivers, there are some cars and building walls in
some distance. For each of the nominal receiver and transmitter
distances m a number of 200 individual mea-

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PICHLER et al.: MULTI-CHANNEL DISTANCE MEASUREMENT WITH IEEE 802.15.4 (ZIGBEE) DEVICES 857

Fig. 14. Photographs of measurement scenarios. (a) Outdoor scenario in a park outside an office building with two transmitters and two receivers. (b) Inside
scenario in a cafeteria for 2-D measurement with two transmitters and four receivers.

Fig. 15. Statistics of outdoor measurement errors for evaluation of (a) time shift n and (b) phase ' from 200 measurements at each nominal distance r
between 0.0 and 9.0 m. Shown are 25%, 50%, and 75% quartiles as box, full data range as whiskers.

TABLE II
STATISTICS OF OUTDOOR MEASUREMENT ERRORS FOR EVALUATION OF (a) TIME SHIFT n AND (b) PHASE ' FROM 200 MEASUREMENTS AT
EACH NOMINAL DISTANCE r BETWEEN 0.0 AND 9.0 M. SAMPLE MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION (MEA, STD), 25%, 50%, AND 75% QUARTILES
(25Q, MED, 75Q), AND INTER-QUARTILE RANGE (IQR). ALL TABLE VALUES IN METERS

surement sequences was recorded. The system was parameter- B. Indoor Scenario
ized identical to the simulation setup regarding packet durations, An indoor scenario in a cafeteria, a photograph of which is
spacing, and sampling frequency. found in Fig. 14(b), was used for a 2-D position measurement
Statistical evaluations of the absolute measurement error using two transmitters and four receivers. Transmitter was
are shown as box plot in Fig. 15 and given numer- placed in the center of the setup, transmitter at three different
ically in Table II, where parts (a) give the values for estimates positions with coordinates , , and , at
derived from , and parts (b) those for estimates from . which 80, 124, and 128 measurements, respectively, were
For all nominal distances the ranging results from time-shifts taken. Phase curves were derived from the measurements
show both, a large bias of up to over 1 m, and large vari- of every one of six possible pairs of receivers, and the spec-
ations in the range of several tens of centimeters. If the slope trum of was computed according to [22]. Spectra
of the phase is used for evaluation, the bias decreases by from receiver combinations were additively superposed for an
roughly an order of magnitude, and the variations are reduced optimization criterion over the -plane, from which position
by approximately a factor of 5. estimates in - and -direction were computed.

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858
Fig. 16. Setup and results for 2-D indoor measurement in cafeteria. Position
of transmitter T to be measured at three different positions (x =y ), (x =y ),
and (x =y ). Fixed transmitter T . Four receivers R ; . . . ; R4.  Black
dots in the vicinity of three transmitter positions indicate position estimates.
Fig. 17. Statistics of indoor measurement errors for evaluation of phase 'F; c
from 80, 124, and 128 measurements at points 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Shown
are 25%, 50%, and 75% quartiles as box, full data range as whiskers for x- and
y -coordinates at each point.
TABLE III
STATISTICS OF INDOOR MEASUREMENT ERRORS FOR EVALUATION OF
PHASE ' FROM 80, 124, AND 128 MEASUREMENTS AT POINTS 1,
2, AND 3, RESPECTIVELY. SAMPLE MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
(MEA, STD), 25%, 50%, AND 75% QUARTILES (25Q, MED, 75Q),
AND INTER-QUARTILE RANGE (IQR) FOR x- AND y -COORDINATES
AT EACH POINT. ALL TABLE VALUES IN METERS
Measurement results are plotted as black dots in Fig. 16, and
a statistical analysis is given in Fig. 17 and Table III. Due to the
more challenging environment with heavier multi-path propa-
gation than in the outdoor setup, there is some bias on some of
the measurement results. However, errors are mostly below 1 m.
IX. CONCLUSION
A novel positioning architecture, signal generation and signal
processing strategy is presented that uses low-cost, off-the-shelf
IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) transponder hardware for high-preci-
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IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 3, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2009
sion distance estimation. The coherent combination of measure-
ments from multiple channels that is possible by using a partic-
ularly designed symmetric frequency hopping sequence allows
the effective use of the full frequency bandwidth of 80 MHz
defined in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. No exact synchroniza-
tion between transponders is required, and most errors in all
frequency sources are eliminated. Therefore, good multi-path
suppression, low bias and low variance in distance estimates
is achieved, as shown in simulations and measurement evalua-
tions. An iterative signal processing approach using fast Fourier
transforms for correlation in time and frequency domain allows
the implementation with low computational complexity.
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779–782.
Markus Pichler (M’09) was born in Linz, Austria,
in 1976. He received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in mecha-
tronics and the Dr.techn. degree from the Johannes
Kepler University, Linz, Austria, in 2002 and 2007,
respectively.
He was with the Institute for Communications and
Information Engineering at the University of Linz,
and joined the Linz Center of Competence in Mecha-
tronics (LCM) in 2002. His research interests include
systems design, signal generation, and digital signal
processing for FMCW and FSCW radar and posi-
tioning systems. He has authored or coauthored 20 publications.
Dr. Pichler was the recipient of the 2004 European Microwave Association
(EuMA) Radar Prize.
Stefan Schwarzer (S’08) was born in Werdohl,
Germany, in 1981. He received the Dipl.-Ing.
degree in mechanical engineering/mechatronics
(with distinction) from Clausthal University of
Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, in 2006.
He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree at
the Institute of Electrical Information Technology,
Clausthal University.
In 2005, he joined the Department of Wireless Sen-
sors and RF Technology, Siemens Corporate Tech-
nology, Munich, Germany, where he is working as
a Research Assistant. He received the Ernst-von-Siemens doctoral scholarship.
His research interests are low-cost positioning systems for RFID and sensor net-
work applications.
Mr. Schwarzer is a student member of the ION and the German VDI.
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859
Andreas Stelzer (M’00) was born in Haslach an der
Mühl, Austria, in 1968. He received the Diploma En-
gineer degree in electrical engineering from the Tech-
nical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and the
Dr.techn. degree (Ph.D.) in mechatronics with honors
sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae from the Jo-
hannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, in 2000.
Since 2000, he has been with the Institute for
Communications and Information Engineering,
Johannes Kepler University, and since 2003 as an
Associate Professor. Since 2003, he has served as a
key researcher for the Linz Center of Competence in Mechatronics (LCM) and
now for the recently founded Austrian Center of Competence in Mechatronics
(ACCM) and is responsible for numerous industrial projects. Since 2007,
he has been head of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Integrated Radar
Sensors. His research work focuses on microwave sensor systems for industrial
applications, RF- and microwave subsystems, ultrawideband technology, SAW
sensor systems and applications, as well as digital signal processing for sensor
signal evaluation. He has authored or coauthored more than 160 journal and
conference papers. He is a reviewer for international journals and conferences.
Dr. Stelzer received several awards, including the EEEfCOM Innovation
Award and the EuMA Radar Prize at the European Radar Conference. In 2008,
he received the IEEE-MTT Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the Mi-
crowave Theory and Techniques Society. He is a member of the Austrian OVE.
He served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS
COMPONENTS LETTERS.
Martin Vossiek (M’96–SM’05) was born in Dort-
mund, Germany, in 1964. He received the Dipl.-Ing.
degree and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany,
in 1991 and 1996, respectively.
In 1996, he joined Siemens, Munich, Germany.
From 2000 to 2003, he headed the Microwave Sys-
tems Group, Siemens Corporate Technology, where
he was responsible for product developments in the
field of commercial microwave sensor and commu-
nication systems. In 2003, he joined the Institute
of Electrical Information Technology (IEI), Clausthal University, Clausthal-
Zellerfeld, Germany, where he is currently a Professor. He has authored or
coauthored approximately 75 refereed papers. He is a member of the Editorial
Board of FREQUENZ. He holds approximately 70 patents. His research
concerns the areas of sensors, microwave techniques, and communications.
Dr. Vossiek is a member of the German IEEE Microwave Theory and Tech-
niques (MTT)/Antennas and Propagation (AP) Chapter Executive Board and
member of the IEEE Technical Committee MTT-16. He is also a member of
the two technical committees 7.3 “Microwave Technology” and 7.4 “Localiza-
tion” of the Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies
(VDE/ITG). He has been a member of Technical Program Committees for nu-
merous international conferences. He has served on the review boards of tech-
nical journals, including the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND
TECHNIQUES, the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS,
AND FREQUENCY CONTROL, and the IEEE TRANSACTION ON CIRCUITS AND
SYSTEMS—PART II: ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING. He was the re-
cipient of several international awards including the European Microwave Con-
ference (EuMC) European Microwave Award (1996), the EEEFCOM Innova-
tion Prize (2004), and The European Microwave Association (EuMA) Radar
Prize (2004).