An Improved AoA Estimation Algorithm for BLE System in the Presence of Phase Noise

Location-based service (LBS) provides users with personalized experience. With the latest Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology, switched antenna array and constant tone extension (CTE) are introduced enabling angle of arrival (AoA) estimation for improved positioning accuracy. However, phase noise may significantly degrade the AoA estimation performance. Such impairment and its mitigation method are not well discussed in existing literature. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the performance degradation of AoA estimation caused by phase noise in BLE system. Based on the specific antenna switching pattern, an improved multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm is proposed. We further propose an expectation maximization MUSIC (EM-MUSIC) algorithm to improve the AoA estimation accuracy by estimating the phase noise with extended Kalman filter. Simulation results show that at typical SNR level, the proposed algorithm can reduce the estimation error by more than 55% compared with existing algorithms. The proposed EM-MUSIC algorithm can greatly improve the positioning accuracy and is ideal for LBS.