Smart Device Localization Under α-KMS Fading Environment using Feedback Distance based Gradient Ascent

The location of mobile terminals in cellular networks is an important problem with applications in resource allocation, location sensitive browsing, and emergency communications. Finding cost effective location estimation techniques that are robust to non-line of sight (NLOS) propagation, quantization, and measurement noise is a key problem in this area. Quantized time difference of arrival (TDoA) and received signal strength (RSS) measurements can be made simultaneously by CDMA cellular networks at low cost. The different sources of errors for each measurement type cause RSS and TDoA measurements to contain independent information about mobile terminal location. This paper applies data fusion to combine the information of RSS and TDoA measurements to calculate a superior location estimate. Nonparametric estimation methods, that are robust to variations of measurement noise and quantization, are employed to calculate the location estimates. It is shown how the data fusion location estimators are robust, provide lower error than the estimators based on the individual measurements, and have low implementation cost.

location estimation and tracking for the mobile devices have attracted a significant amount of attention in recent years. The network-based location estimation schemes have been widely adopted based on the radio signals between the mobile device and the base stations. The location estimators associated with the Kalman filtering techniques are exploited to both acquire location estimation and trajectory tracking for the mobile devices. However, most of the existing schemes become unapplicable due to the insufficiency of signal sources. In this paper, a predictive location tracking (PLT) algorithm is proposed to alleviate this problem. The predictive information obtained from the Kalman filter is employed to provide the additional signal inputs for the location estimators. The proposed PLT scheme can offer persistent accuracy for location tracking of the mobile devices, especially with inadequate signal sources. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed PLT algorithm can achieve better precision, comparing with other existing schemes, in mobile location estimation and tracking.

Location estimation and tracking for the mobile devices have attracted a significant amount of attention in recent years. The network-based location estimation schemes have been widely adopted based on the radio signals between the mobile device and the base stations. The location estimators associated with the Kalman filtering techniques are exploited to both acquire location estimation and trajectory tracking for the mobile devices. However, most of the existing schemes become inapplicable for location tracking due to the deficiency of signal sources. In this paper, two predictive location tracking algorithms are proposed to alleviate this problem. The predictive location tracking (PLT) scheme utilizes the predictive information obtained from the Kalman filter in order to provide the additional signal inputs for the location estimator. Furthermore, the geometric-assisted PLT (GPLT) scheme incorporates the geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) information into the algorithm design. Persistent accuracy for location tracking can be achieved by adopting the proposed GPLT scheme, especially with inadequate signal sources. Numerical results demonstrate that the GPLT algorithm can achieve better precision in comparison with other network-based location tracking schemes.

Linear estimators have been extensively utilized for wireless location estimation for their simplicity and closed form property. In the paper, the class of linear estimator by introducing an additional variable, e.g., the well-adopted linear least squares (LLS) estimator, is discussed. There exists information loss from the linearization of location estimator to the nonlinear location estimation, which prevents the linear estimator from approaching the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB). The linearized location estimation problem-based CRLB (L-CRLB) is derived in this paper to provide a portrayal that can fully characterize the behavior for this type of linearized location estimator. The relationships between the proposed L-CRLB and the conventional CRLB are obtained and theoretically proven in this paper. As suggested by the L-CRLB, higher estimation accuracy can be achieved if the mobile station (MS) is located inside the convex hull of the base stations (BSs) compared to the case that the MS is situated outside of the geometric layout. This result motivates the proposal of geometry-assisted localization (GAL) algorithm in order to consider the geometric effect associated with the linearization loss. Based on the initial estimation, the GAL algorithm fictitiously moves the BSs based on the L-CRLB criteria. Two different implementations, including the GAL with two-step least squares estimator (GAL-TSLS) and the GAL with Kalman filter (GAL-KF), are proposed to consider the situations with and without the adoption of MS's historical estimation. Simulation results show that the GAL-KF scheme can compensate the linearization loss and improve the performance of conventional location estimators.

In indoor location environment, shadowing, multipath and reflection phenomena make the position estimation inaccurate. Large number of Access Points (APs) equipped with single antenna could obtain enough Receive Signal Strength (RSS) information to describe signal characteristics of the target space. However, it results in a large investment costs. This paper provides a novel indoor positioning solution using the multi-antennas architecture to increase the accuracy of location estimation. The system obtains enough RSS to compute the user location and provides a reasonable cost of deployments in indoor location environment. Experimental and numerical results show that the proposed indoor location estimation demonstrates a high accuracy of positioning and outstanding performance when RSS is collected by smart antenna technique. More specifically, the accuracy is increased from 1.34% to 92.4% and the error variance is reduced by 96% as compared to the traditional location fingerprint method.

Since there is no priorly knowledge about the locations of most of the sensors which scattered randomly in an area, wireless sensor network localization methods try to find out where sensors are located. A new distributed range-free localization algorithm is proposed in this paper. The method first uses convex optimization techniques to find bounding boxes that contain target nodes locations estimation, and then nodes cooperate with each other in finite number of iterations to enhance the accuracy of whole network location estimation. As well as, results of the algorithm have been compared with five range-free based methods like DV-hop, APIT and Amorphous and the proposed method provides more accurate results in mean error metric.

With the ever-growing number of networked devices and a higher likelihood of having line-of-sight communication most of the time, location estimation of a blind node in the 5th generation Ultra-Dense Networks (UDNs) system has gained considerable attention in recent years. One of main factors for accurate location estimates in 5G UDN is node randomness. Several location methods and their performance analyses have been addressed for localization in 5G UDN. Although the distribution of reference nodes (RNs) is considered in the literature, the information on spatial node distribution is only used to evaluate the average performance and is not utilized in the location methods. In this paper, a Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) and three location estimators including the iterative, closed-form, and hybrid algorithms are proposed for localization in 5G UDN with randomly distributed RNs. Both range measurements and prior information on spatial node distribution are utilized for the proposed location methods and CRLB. Moreover, some characteristics of the CRLB for 5G UDN localization are derived in this paper. Detail comparison between the proposed CRLB and the previous performance study on CRLB for 5G UDN is given. Theoretical analysis proves that the proposed CRLB for the case with randomly distributed RNs is smaller than the average CRLB for the case with fixed location RNs. The top and bottom bounds of the proposed CRLB in the cases with low and high signal noise ratios are also given. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed methods perform better than the conventional methods only based on range measurements and can asymptotically attain the CRLB.

Location estimating in indoor environments is an important research topic. RSSI can be expressed as a function of distance. RSSI based location estimating techniques are widely popular since no additional hardware is required. However, RSSI measurements collected in indoor environments are too noisy due to reflecting and scattering signals, and packet loss. Methods utilizing noisy signals, the RSSI measurements have large positioning errors that are unacceptable for indoor environments. In this paper, location estimation is aimed to be improved by adaptively filtering the RSSI measurements collected at indoor environment with Zigbee modules.

Currently there is almost ubiquitous availability of wireless signaling for data communications within commercial building complexes resulting in receiver signal strength (RSS) observables that are typically sufficient for generating viable location estimates of mobile wireless devices. However, while RSS observables are generally plentiful, achieving an accurate estimation of location is difficult due to several factors affecting the electromagnetic coupling between the mobile antenna and the building access points that are not modeled and hence contribute to the overall estimation uncertainty. Such uncertainty is typically mitigated with a moderate redundancy of RSS sensor observations in combination with other constraints imposed on the mobile trajectory. In this paper, the Fisher Information (FI) of a set of RSS sensor observations in the context of variables related to the mobile location is developed. This provides a practical method of determining the potential location accuracy for the given set of wireless signals available. Furthermore, the information value of individual RSS measurements can be quantified and the RSS observables weighted accordingly in estimation combining algorithms. The practical utility of using FI in this context was demonstrated experimentally with an extensive set of RSS measurements recorded in an office complex. The resulting deviation of the mobile location estimation based on application of weighted likelihood processing to the experimental RSS data was shown to agree closely with the Cramer Rao bound determined from the FI analysis.

Indoor signals are susceptible to NLOS propagation effects, multipath effects, and a dynamic environment, posing more challenges than outdoor signals despite decades of advancements in location services. In modern Wi-Fi networks that support both MIMO and OFDM techniques, Channel State Information (CSI) is now used as an enhanced wireless channel metric replacing the Wi-Fi received signal strength (RSS) fingerprinting method. The indoor multipath effects, however, make it less robust and stable. This study proposes a positive knowledge transfer-based heterogeneous data fusion method for representing the different scenarios of temporal variations in CSI-based fingerprint measurements generated in a complex indoor environment targeting indoor parking lots, while reducing the training calibration overhead. Extensive experiments were performed with real-world scenarios of the indoor parking phenomenon. Results revealed that the proposed algorithm proved to be an efficient algorithm with consistent positioning accuracy across all potential variations. In addition to improving indoor parking location accuracy, the proposed algorithm provides computationally robust and efficient location estimates in dynamic environments. A Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) analysis was also used to estimate the lower bound of the parking lot location error variance under various temporal variation scenarios. Based on analytical derivations, we prove that the lower bound of the variance of the location estimator depends on the (i) angle of the base stations, (ii) number of base stations, (iii) distance between the target and the base station, djr (iv) correlation of the measurements, ρrjai and (v) signal propagation parameters σC and γ.

This paper presents results for an approach for indoor location estimation that integrates received signal strength (RSS) data from both WiFi and GSM networks. Previous work has focused on relatively small indoor environments. In many potential applications, getting approximate location information, such as in which room the mobile user is, is adequate. A hierarchical clustering method is used to partition the RSS space. To choose the best transmitters in a partition, we assess the amount of RSS variance that is attributable to different base stations (BSs) or access points (APs) by transforming the RSS tuples into principal components (PCs). This allows us to retain most of the useful information of detectable transmitters in fewer dimensions. In our experiments, we collected WiFi and cellular RSS on the 2nd and 3rd-floor electronic engineering (EE) building in Queen Mary campus. The experiment results show that the proposed method can provide a good accuracy of room prediction, especially when we integrate WiFi RSS with GSM RSS together to do the positioning.

This paper describes an approach to accurate mobile user location estimation outdoors without GPS or triangulation. The partitioning of the wireless environment into clusters that allow accurate modeling of the propagation environment and grid based approaches is compared. The models are constructed from historical data obtained by monitoring of the received signal strengths (RSSs) from the mobile stations (MSs). The performance is evaluated using real data in a GSM network around the Queen Mary campus.

An accurate and real-time implementable location technique for wireless sensor radio is in demand for many applications. Most of the works on wireless sensor location estimation uses received signal strength indicator (RSSI), direction of arrival (DOA) estimation, or time of arrival (TOA) estimation techniques. A precise DOA and TOA measurement results in more accurate location estimation. In this paper, we present Modified Matrix Pencil (MP) method for joint DOA-TOA estimation without using channel estimates. We also compare performance (of the Modified MP) under varying number of antenna elements, SNR and spread.

In this paper, we propose a surface correlation based fingerprinting method in sparse Wi-Fi environment. The proposed method can estimate location even with very few Wi-Fi APs by using accumulated spatial RSS pattern. We verify performance of the proposed method through several tests in a building with complex paths. Many studies have developed localization technologies that use measurements such as RSS (Received Signal Strength) or RTT (Round Trip Time) for Wi-Fi signal. All RF have signal noise and distortion problems as well as multipath problem in indoor environments. As the distance from the RF signal source increases, the discrimination of the RSS decreases due to RF signal noise and distortion. Therefore, ambiguity of RSS increases as the distance increases, the performance deteriorates. The conventional RF based localization method have tried to maintain dense RF environment to guarantee stable and accurate performance. However, in order to maintain the dense RF environment, it is becoming a barrier to commercialization of localization technology due to high cost of constructing RF infrastructure and maintenance difficulty. In this paper, we propose a Surface Correlation (SC) based fingerprinting technique to maintain high positioning performance even with few Wi-Fi APs. The surface is the accumulated RSS pattern data during the movement of a pedestrian, which means the spatial RSS pattern. Conventional fingerprinting methods using kNN (k-Nearest Neighbors) and WkNN (Weighted kNN) are very vulnerable to signal noise and distortion because they utilize instantaneous RSS data. The performance of Particle Filter (PF) based localization technology is also degraded in areas where Wi-Fi AP is sparsely distributed. However, the proposed method is very robust against signal noise and distortion because it compares the spatial RSS pattern with the reference RSS pattern on the fingerprinting database. This increases localization accuracy and availability for Wi-Fi coverage. For localization, the proposed method conduct correlation process for the spatial RSS pattern of a pedestrian with reference RSS pattern of database. So, the reference RSS pattern should be extracted from a reference trajectory that matches a pedestrian`s walking path. The proposed method utilize a database of ‘link-node’ structure to dynamically generate a reference trajectory in indoor environment with complicated path. It generate candidate reference trajectories using only MAC address and turn event of Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning (PDR). The proposed method fix a reference trajectory between these candidate trajectories through correlation process of measured RSS pattern with each reference RSS pattern. A reference point on the fixed reference having most similar RSS pattern to a pedestrian`s is considered as a current location. In order to improve performance at a fork where RSS ambiguity increases, the proposed method estimates preferentially for a reference trajectory matching with PDR turn event. The turn event can be wrong due to various motion of a pedestrian. The proposed method selects a correct reference trajectory by continuously performing correlation process on candidate reference trajectories. In order to verify the performance of the proposed surface correlation based fingerprinting method, we conducted several tests in a three-story building. Before the tests, we conducted a survey of Wi-Fi environment to construct fingerprinting database in the building. As a result of the survey, 170 APs are distributed in the building. We reduced the number of APs by 20% from 170 to 17, and analyzed performance of the proposed and conventional localization methods. The test results show that the performance of the conventional localization methods degrade as the number of applied APs decreases. The proposed fingerprinting method shows a 3 meter localization error even with very few Wi-Fi APs, and unlike the conventional fingerprinting method, the localization error is bounded to be within 5m due to the use of spatial RSS pattern. In this paper, we presented the fingerprinting method using the surface correlation in sparse Wi-Fi environment. The proposed fingerprinting method accumulates Wi-Fi RSS during movement of a pedestrian. The proposed method compares the spatial RSS pattern, which is accumulated RSS data, with reference RSS patterns of fingerprinting database. By comparing the RSS patterns, the proposed method greatly improves accuracy as well as stability. In addition, it can be effectively applied in a sparse Wi-Fi environment by improving the availability of ambiguous areas of Wi-Fi coverage. Through these results, we expect to be able to provide accurate and reliable location information even in indoor weak RF environment.

Along with the penetration of smart devices and mobile applications in our daily life, how to effectively manage the mobility issues in wireless networks becomes a challenging task. The ability to continuously and accurately track the target object’s position plays a vital role in mobility management. In this paper, we propose a novel indoor localization algorithm that fuses multiple signal features as the location fingerprints. The rationale that motivates our algorithm design stems from the following observation: although using one special signal feature (e.g., channel state information (CSI)) might achieve statistically higher accuracy than using another signal feature (e.g., received signal strength (RSS)), the accuracy for individual position estimations is usually diversified when only one signal feature is used in localization. For example, using RSS can obtain more accurate location estimation than using CSI for some individual positions. Thus, we propose a novel indoor localization algorithm that fuses multiple types of signal features as fingerprint of positions, which can effectively improve localization accuracy. We designed several fusion schemes and evaluated their performance. Experiments show that our algorithm achieves localization error below 0.5m and 1.1m in two typical indoor environments, about 30% lower than the accuracy of algorithms by fusing multiple signal features.