A Single-Anchor Mobile Localization Scheme

Abstract

It is necessary for rescuers to localize a target trapped in a an unknown area resulting from various natural disasters or human warfare. The global navigation satellite systems and existing wireless and cellular infrastructures may have been partially or totally constrained and not available for localization in the target area. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective single-anchor mobile localization scheme, called TSAL as a potential solution in the case where traditional localization methods fail. By building three Cartesian coordinate systems and carrying out distance and/or steering-angle measurement with the off-the-shelf approaches while the target node is moving, utilizing just one of existing normally-functioning cellular Base Stations (BSs) as the only anchor or redeploying only one BS is enough to localize the target. In addition, TSAL also works with multiple anchor nodes and we propose a corresponding scheme based on TSAL, called TML, which can obtain more accurate localization. Theoretical analyses, extensive simulations and real-world experiments are conducted for evaluating the proposed schemes, with the effects of a set of parameter settings investigated, which shows the high availability and effectiveness of our schemes.