Precision Assessment of Pulsed Optical Wireless Time Difference of Arrival Estimation

This work analyzes the achievable precision for pulsed optical wireless time difference of arrival estimation. A statistical signal processing model is presented to derive the Cramér-Rao lower bound on the time difference estimation. An experimental assessment in a small scale lab setup is used to verify the theoretical results. The results identify the system bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio as the critical system parameters that should be considered to optimize the precision of time difference estimates.