Method and system of timing and localizing a radio signal

1. Method of timing, in a receiver, a radio signal generated in and transmitted from a transmitter, the radio signal comprising a series of frequency chirps, the method including:

receiving the radio signal from the transmitter;

synthesizing projection vectors comprising a series of frequency chirps that are a complex-conjugate image of those comprised in the radio signal the projection vectors being time-shifted relative to one another by determined shift intervals of time;

computing a projection of the received radio signal by multiplying the received radio signal by the projection vectors and accumulating inner products of corresponding samples;

interpolating the projection of the received radio signal to determine a peak time shift,

wherein the projection vectors comprise a plurality of chirps and the step of computing a projection spans a plurality of chirps in the received radio signal,

the method further comprising determining a clock correspondence between a local time reference comprised in the receiver and a transmitter's time reference based on the received radio signal and compensating frequency slope and phase of the chirps in the projection vectors based on the clock correspondence.

2. The method of claim 1 ; wherein a bandwidth of the received signal is partitioned into sub-bands, the multiplication of the projection vectors by the received radio signal is carried out in each of the sub-bands.

3. The method of claim 1 the steps of multiplying the projection vectors by the received radio signal is carried on the stored digital representation.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the projection vectors include one first projection vector aligned with the received radio signals, one second projection vector advanced relative to the first vector, one third vector delayed relative to the first projection vector.

5. The method of claim 1 , comprising selecting, in the radio signal, a preamble including a plurality of identical frequency chirps.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein a phase of one of said projection vectors has discontinuities at each chirp boundary.

7. Method of timing, in a receiver, a radio signal generated in and transmitted from a transmitter, the radio signal comprising a series of frequency chirps, the method including:

receiving the radio signal from the transmitter;

synthesizing projection vectors comprising a series of frequency chirps that are a complex-conjugate image of those comprised in the radio signal the projection vectors being time-shifted relative to one another by determined shift intervals of time;

computing a projection of the received radio signal by multiplying the received radio signal by the projection vectors and accumulating inner products of corresponding samples;

interpolating the projection of the received radio signal to determine a peak time shift,

wherein the projection vectors comprise a plurality of chirps and the step of computing a projection spans a plurality of chirps in the received radio signal,

wherein a bandwidth of the received signal is partitioned into sub-hands, the multiplication of the projection vectors by the received radio signal is carried out in each of the sub-bands,

comprising a combination between sub-band results and fill, band result, including rejecting any of the peak time shifts, based on an estimated multipath impact.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the multipath impact is estimated based on amplitudes of the received signal in the sub-bands.