SAM LOST Smart Antennas-Based Movable Localization System

Abstract

Nowadays, wireless position location of multiple sources attracts considerable interest, not only for military, law-enforcement, and public safety applications, but also in the field of intelligent transportation systems and location-specific commercial services. In this paper, we present a complete, autonomous, and movable-on-demand localization system. It is based the estimation of the direction of arrival of signals emitted by mobile sources, impinging an array of sensors placed board a mobile localization station, represented by any aerial or terrestrial vehicle. The system is especially tailored for wireless users unable to perform self-localization, and its most attractive characteristic is its inherent mobility, which allows a quick employment on demand, in emergency situations, where other localization infrastructures are not present or are unable to properly operate. Procedures of autolocalization and autoorientation of the localization station, based a set of emitting sources in known location, are considered as well. The user to be located should only be equipped with a very simple radio transmitter, whose signal can be received and identified by the localization station. Alternatively, in more sophisticated scenarios, the user's equipment can be a personal mobile phone, seamlessly connected with the localization station acting as a temporary base station. The performance of the overall system has been evaluated for a case of code division multiple access (CDMA)-based transceiver via computer simulations, showing that the achievable accuracy for locating the user position can fulfil the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) E-911 standard requirements for emergency calls over reasonably wide coverage areas.