i-LocON

Partners

• Sigint Solutions Ltd
• Open University of Cyprus

Description of work

The main objective of the proposed project is to develop cellular user localisation algorithms methodologies and products. The algorithms and methodologies will be turned by The Host Organization into the following products:

• A primary product that will be called i-LocON and will provide a Cellular Localization Platform of increased accuracy that will allow cellular operators to achieve increased localization accuracy detection of cellular users in both outdoor and indoor urban environments, including detecting users in indoor multi-floor environments, a process which typically is not easily feasible since current cellular systems cannot provide such detection granularity with typical localization tools and methodologies.
•  
• A secondary product that will be called i-BTS and will be a light Software Defined Radio (SDR) light cellular base station, which will be able to act as an add-on to the primary product, and will be emulating a 4G TDD base station. The secondary product should be capable to be mounted in the form of a payload to on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that will allow search and rescue teams to detect with increased accuracy a user in a predetermined local outdoor or indoor environment. This secondary product will act as multiple virtual cellular base stations for localization purposes, since its position will be dynamic and not fixed. The secondary product requires that the product users have knowledge of the rough outdoor area or the building the cellular users are located. This information can be obtain by other using the primary product through a cellular operator or through other means (e.g. product users are aware that a specific cellular user is within a building based on other provided.

Contribution

The Technological objectives of the project include the design, implementation, usage and verification of all the necessary tools to perform better cellular localization, leading to the two products described above. 

To achieve the technological objectives the project team will: 

• Develop a supporting software module that will automatically create the 3D environment of the area of interest in order to support the ray tracing process. Creation of the 3D environment can be achieved in a number of ways:
  1. Importing existing building databases
  2. Create outdoor building databases based on image processing techniques by performing image processing on aerial / satellite images
  3. Create outdoor building databases based on existing building footprint data accessible from open source web sources (e.g. Openstreet maps) and / or by using where available LIDAR data

The software module will support all the above methods in order to provide alternative and redundant methods for producing the 3D environment.

• Develop a software module that will create 3D buildings with correct statistical descriptions of the number and position of window apertures in order to support the position estimate of a cellular user within a building. Module will:
  • Make usage of signal strength and signal statistics from multiple base stations based either on simulations performed with TruNET Wireless or based on a measurement campaign.

• Build on top of TruNET Wireless ray tracing engine to:
  • utilize the TruNET Wireless ray tracing engine to estimate the absolute signal paths traveled within a cellular environment, for both outdoor and indoor areas of interest thus accurately estimating Timing Advance / Adjustment (2G/4G TDD) and Propagation Delay (3G) parameters
  • utilize TruNET wireless ray tracing engine to realistically estimate the signal strength and its statistics even in multipath environments
  • Populate a fingerprint database with Timing Advance, Propagation Delay and signal strength parameters
• Design and Implement a rigorous calibrated radio propagation campaign in outdoor and indoor environments that will record signal strength, its statistics, and Timing Advance parameters for the purpose of:
  • Supporting the algorithmic work (development and verification) that will be developed in the course of this project
  • Supporting the creation of 3D buildings and their correct statistical description of the number and position of windows apertures and other relevant building characteristics (for the purpose of indoor positioning)
• Develop a statistical correlation toolbox that will be used to process and compare the fingerprinting data developed in 3(a) above and the real measurements from the cellular system in order to identify the user's position
• Develop a custom-made cellular user positioning solution for search and rescue teams, based on a single cellular SDR based payload and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for detecting an indoor user with increased accuracy. This solution does not require a cellular operator's infrastructure.

The above technological activities will lead to the development of the Primary and Secondary products that are presented conceptually in the figures below.

Figure 1: i-LocON (Primary product)

Figure 2: i-BTS (Secondary Product)