Common-Transmitter Multipath-Aware TDoA Localization for Acoustic Backscatter-Enabled IoUT Networks

Abstract

Acoustic backscatter enables low-power Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) nodes, but localizing passive/semi-passive tags is difficult under weak returns and surface/seabed multipath. This letter proposes a clock-free common-transmitter time-difference-of-arrival (TDoA) framework, in which one anchor interrogates the tag and synchronized receivers measure the backscattered arrivals. Receiver-side differencing cancels the unknown interrogation time, forward anchor-to-tag delay, and tag switching delay. A weighted nonlinear least-squares estimator combines signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), timing variance, and root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread. Simulations against received signal strength indicator (RSSI)-only, unweighted, SNR-weighted, and robust TDoA baselines show that at $20$ dB SNR, the root-mean-square error (RMSE) decreases from $4.71$ m to $4.13$ m, and the $5$ m success probability improves from $0.793$ to $0.835$.