Cooperative network solution and implementation for emergency applications with enhanced position estimation capability

Abstract

This paper proposes a cooperative network topology for emergency applications which comprises of incident scene networks (ISN) and external area networks. Both base stations and rescuers in ISN are modeled as nodes with the capabilities of software defined radio and signal processing. A worldwide interoperability for microwave access-based emergency protocol is proposed with which rescuers can estimate their geo-locations via time difference of arrival based on more than four known base stations coordinates. A comparative study of state-of-the-art position estimation methods have been carried out for the proposed cooperative network topology to select the most robust method. Hardware results for the most robust position estimation method without/with multipath mitigation have been implemented and presented to estimate the location of the rescuer.