Mobile Positioning and Tracking Based on TOA/TSOA/TDOA/AOA with NLOS-Reduced Distance Measurements

Abstract

In this paper, we address the issue of mobile positioning and tracking after measurements have been made on the distances and possibly directions between an MS (mobile station) and its nearby base stations (BS's). The measurements can come from the time of arrival (TOA), the time sum of arrival (TSOA), the time difference of arrival (TDOA), and the angle of arrival (AOA). They are in general corrupted with measurement noise and NLOS (non-line-of-sight) error. The NLOS error is the dominant factor that degrades the accuracy of mobile positioning. Assuming specific statistic models for the NLOS error, however, we propose a scheme that significantly reduces its effect. Regardless of which of the first three measurement types (i.e. TOA, TSOA, or TDOA) is used, the proposed scheme computes the MS location in a mathematically unified way. We also propose a method to identify the TOA measurements that are not or only slightly corrupted with NLOS errors. We call them nearly NLOS-error-free TOA measurements. From the signals associated with TOA measurements, AOA information can be obtained and used to aid the MS positioning. Finally, by combining the proposed MS positioning method with Kalman filtering, we propose a scheme to track the movement of the MS.