I-Corps: Commercialization Feasibility Research and Demonstration Preparation for Third-Party Localization Toolkits

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Researchers have developed various ground and aerial localization toolkits for surveillance and rescue tasks. Unlike most existing work focusing on self-positioning or localization initialized by positioning infrastructures, these toolkits target applications in which a third party responds to a request and conducts an on-demand task of localizing mobile targets without (or with) the help of existing infrastructures. The application domains include public safety, network forensics, and network management. The toolkits can cope with various complicated positioning environments including indoor and outdoor scenes from ground to air and cater to emerging cyber space crime scene investigations for law enforcement. The four third party localization toolkits include a mini helicopter-based aerial wireless kit, a handheld locator based on SmartPhones, a search and rescue robot and a three-dimensional localization and locking antennae toolkit. Localization via received signal strength (RSS) time series by a third party can be challenging due to the multipath effect and the lack of a large scale infrastructure. Researchers are able use the portability of their localization toolkits and make measurements at multiple locations to improve localization accuracy. These toolkits have the potential to fill an important gap in localization for scenes where no positioning infrastructure is available.The ability to localize mobile targets without the help of existing positioning infrastructures is needed by a wide variety of search and rescue tasks performed by corporations, governments, and security agencies. Those tasks can be law enforcement searching for missing victims or criminals committing crimes via wireless networks, and various rescue teams including park rangers searching for lost travelers and hikers. Network managers can use these toolkits to pinpoint rogue access points, and malfunctioned mobile devices. Impacts of this project may also extend to academia and education. The market studies conducted in the project may enhance scientific and technological understanding of the localization problems with portable devices.