In the last decade, the research on and the technology for outdoor tracking have seen an explosion of advances. It is expected that in the near future, we will witness similar trends for indoor scenarios where people spend more than 70% of their lives. The rationale for this is that there is a need for reliable and high-definition real-time tracking systems that have the ability to operate in indoor environments, thus complementing those based on satellite technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS). The indoor environments are very challenging, and as a result, a large variety of technologies have been proposed for coping with them, but no legacy solution has emerged. This paper presents a survey on indoor wireless tracking of mobile nodes from a signal processing perspective. It can be argued that the indoor tracking problem is more challenging than the problem on indoor localization. The reason is simple: From a set of measurements, one has to estimate not one location but a series of correlated locations of a mobile node. The paper illustrates the theory, the main tools, and the most promising technologies for indoor tracking. New directions of research are also discussed.

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Indoor Tracking: Theory, Methods, and Technologies

Fiber ring interferometer

Network localization and navigation (NLN) is a promising paradigm, in which mobile nodes exploit spatiotemporal cooperation, to provide reliable location information for a diverse range of wireless applications. This paper presents a theoretical foundation of NLN, including a mathematical formulation for NLN, an introduction of equivalent Fisher information analysis, and determination of the fundamental limits of localization accuracy. Key ingredients such as spatiotemporal cooperation, array signal processing, and map exploitation are then studied. We also develop a geometric interpretation to provide insights into the essence of NLN for network design. Finally, the paper highlights the connection between the theoretical foundation and algorithm development for NLN, guiding the design and operation of practical localization systems.

A Theoretical Foundation of Network Localization and Navigation

The in-flight alignment is a critical stage for airborne inertial navigation system/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) applications. The alignment task is usually carried out by the Kalman filtering technique that necessitates a good initial attitude to obtain a satisfying performance. Due to the airborne dynamics, the in-flight alignment is much more difficult than the alignment on the ground. An optimization-based coarse alignment approach that uses GPS position/velocity as input, founded on the newly-derived velocity/position integration formulae is proposed. Simulation and flight test results show that, with the GPS lever arm well handled, it is potentially able to yield the initial heading up to 1 deg accuracy in 10 s. It can serve as a nice coarse in-flight alignment without any prior attitude information for the subsequent fine Kalman alignment. The approach can also be applied to other applications that require aligning the INS on the run.

Velocity/Position Integration Formula Part I: Application to In-Flight Coarse Alignment

Multiple global navigation satellite system (GNSS) constellations can dramatically improve the signal availability in dense urban environments. However, accuracy remains a challenge because buildings block, reflect and diffract the signals. This paper investigates three different techniques for mitigating the impact of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) reception and multipath interference on position accuracy without using additional hardware, testing them using data collected at multiple sites in central London. Aiding the position solution using a terrain height database was found to have the biggest impact, improving the horizontal accuracy by 35% and the vertical accuracy by a factor of 4. An 8% improvement in horizontal accuracy was also obtained from weighting the GNSS measurements in the position solution according to the carrier-power-to-noise-density ratio (C/N0). Consistency checking using a conventional sequential elimination technique was found to degrade horizontal positioning performance by 60% because it often eliminated the wrong measurements in cases when multiple signals were affected by NLOS reception or strong multipath interference. A new consistency checking method that compares subsets of measurements performed better, but was still equally likely to improve or degrade the accuracy. This was partly because removing a poor measurement can result in adverse signal geometry, degrading the position accuracy. Based on this, several ways of improving the reliability of consistency checking are proposed.

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Height Aiding, C/N 0 Weighting and Consistency Checking for GNSS NLOS and Multipath Mitigation in Urban Areas

This newly revised and greatly expanded edition of the popular Artech House book Principles of GNSS, Inertial, and Multisensor Integrated Navigation Systems offers you a current and comprehensive understanding of satellite navigation, inertial navigation, terrestrial radio navigation, dead reckoning, and environmental feature matching . It provides both an introduction to navigation systems and an in-depth treatment of INS/GNSS and multisensor integration. The second edition offers a wealth of added and updated material, including a brand new chapter on the principles of radio positioning and a chapter devoted to important applications in the field. Other updates include expanded treatments of map matching, image-based navigation, attitude determination, acoustic positioning, pedestrian navigation, advanced GNSS techniques, and several terrestrial and short-range radio positioning technologies. The book shows you how satellite, inertial, and other navigation technologies work, and focuses on processing chains and error sources. In addition, you get a clear introduction to coordinate frames, multi-frame kinematics, Earth models, gravity, Kalman filtering, and nonlinear filtering. Providing solutions to common integration problems, the book describes and compares different integration architectures, and explains how to model different error sources. You get a broad and penetrating overview of current technology and are brought up to speed with the latest developments in the field, including context-dependent and cooperative positioning. DVD Included: Features eleven appendices, interactive worked examples, basic GNSS and INS MATLAB simulation software, and problems and exercises to help you master the material.

Paul D Groves

Papers

Principles of GNSS, Inertial, and Multisensor Integrated Navigation Systems, Second Edition