NETS: Small: Relative Localization with GPS

全球定位系统（GPS）提供了绝对定位与米级精度在地球上的任何地方。然而，厘米级的精度只能使用昂贵的专用设备，如差分全球定位系统。该项目的关键观察是，无线节点的许多应用，如传感器阵列，只需要精确的相对节点位置，而不是精确的绝对坐标。拟议的努力利用信息融合在网络的GPS装备的移动的节点（传感器，智能手机，地面或空中机器人等）。以获得比传统GPS能够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。全球定位系统测量对应的范围数千公里长，通过利用无线电信号以光速传播获得。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。本文提出的基于文献的已知方法和我们自己的新技术的独特组合在基于GPS的相对定位中实现厘米级精度方面显示出巨大的前景。如果成功，该项目将通过它将实现的众多应用产生真正广泛的影响，这些应用在今天要么不经济，要么根本不可能。这些包括无人机的紧密编队飞行、针对视障人士的城市引导系统、自动驾驶车辆的碰撞避免和队列控制、消费级测量设备以及移动的分布式麦克风（和其他传感器）阵列。此外，该项目将侧重于让本科生参与我们的研究。该范德比尔特移动的应用程序团队（VMAT）是一个年轻的志愿者自组织的本科生俱乐部的主要目的是教学/涉及学生在移动的手机应用程序开发领域。PI将鼓励VMAT学生使用我们精确的相对本地化功能开发应用程序，并在早期为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，特别是在这个研究项目中。

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.