NETS: Small: Relative Localization with GPS

NETS：小型：使用 GPS 进行相对定位

• 批准号: 1218710
• 负责人: Akos Ledeczi
• 金额: $ 35万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1218710&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NETS; Small; Relative; Localization; GPS

The Global Positioning System (GPS) provides absolute positioning with meter-scale accuracy anywhere on Earth. However, centimeter-scale precision can only be obtained using expensive and specialized equipment, such as differential GPS. The key observation of the project is that many applications of wireless nodes, such as sensor arrays, require accurate relative node locations only and not precise absolute coordinates. The proposed effort utilizes information fusion in a network of GPS-equipped mobile nodes (sensors, smartphones, ground or aerial robots, etc.) to derive relative geographic location information that is more accurate than what traditional GPS is able to provide. In this project, the nodes share their raw GPS satellite measurements with each other and solve for their pairwise relative location vectors as opposed to individual absolute positions. The proposed work is clearly very challenging. GPS measurements correspond to ranges thousands of kilometers long obtained by utilizing radio signals traveling at the speed of light. All the measurement errors traditional GPS must handle will need to be addressed by our approach as well. The proposed unique combination of known methods from literature and novel techniques of our own shows great promise in achieving centimeter scale accuracy in GPS-based relative localization.If successful, the project will have a truly broad impact through the numerous applications it will enable that are either not economical or simply not possible today. These include tight formation flying of UAVs, an urban guidance system for the visually impaired, collision avoidance and platoon control in autonomous vehicles, consumer grade surveying equipment, and mobile distributed microphone (and other sensor) arrays. Moreover, the project will focus on involving undergraduate students in our research. The Vanderbilt Mobile Application Team (VMAT) is a young volunteer self-organizing undergraduate student club with the primary purpose of teaching/involving students in the field of mobile phone application development. The PIs will encourage VMAT students to develop apps using our precise relative localization feature by providing them hardware and a library of our prototype system early on, and will place special emphasis on involving students from traditionally under-represented groups in VMAT in general and in this research project in particular.

全球定位系统(GPS)为地球上任何地方提供米级精度的绝对定位。然而，厘米级的精度只能使用昂贵的专用设备，如差分GPS。该项目的关键观察是，许多无线节点的应用，如传感器阵列，只需要准确的相对节点位置，而不需要精确的绝对坐标。拟议的努力利用配备GPS的移动节点(传感器、智能手机、地面或空中机器人等)网络中的信息融合。以获得比传统GPS所能提供的更准确的相对地理位置信息。在这个项目中，节点彼此共享它们的原始GPS卫星测量值，并求解它们的成对相对位置向量，而不是单独的绝对位置。拟议的工作显然非常具有挑战性。GPS测量相当于利用以光速传播的无线电信号获得的数千公里长的距离。传统GPS必须处理的所有测量误差也需要通过我们的方法来解决。将文献中的已知方法和我们自己的新技术提出的独特组合显示出在基于GPS的相对定位中实现厘米级精度的巨大前景。如果成功，该项目将通过它实现的许多应用程序产生真正广泛的影响，这些应用程序要么不经济，要么根本不可能。这些包括无人机的紧密编队飞行，为视障人士提供的城市导航系统，自动驾驶车辆的防撞和排控，消费级测量设备，以及移动分布式麦克风(和其他传感器)阵列。此外，该项目将专注于让本科生参与我们的研究。Vanderbilt移动应用团队(VMAT)是一个青年志愿者自组织的本科生俱乐部，主要目的是在手机应用开发领域教授/让学生参与。PI将鼓励VMAT学生使用我们的精确相对本地化功能开发应用程序，方法是在早期向他们提供硬件和我们的原型系统库，并将特别强调让来自传统上代表性不足的群体的学生参与VMAT总体上，特别是这个研究项目。