- Research Article
- Open access
- Published:
Systematic Errors and Location Accuracy in Wireless Networks
EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing volume 2006, Article number: 081787 (2006)
Abstract
Wireless systems already provide time delay and signal strength measurements and the future may see antenna arrays that provide directional information. All these may be used for positioning. Although the statistical accuracy of different positioning methods is well studied, the systematic error effects, which arise, for example, from errors in sensor (node) location, network synchronization, or the path loss model, are not. This study fills this gap providing a unified error-propagation-law-based tool to analyze measurement and systematic error effects. The considered positioning systems, which are compared based on the developed framework, are the hyperbolic (time-delay-based), direction finding (DF), received signal strength (RSS), and relative RSS (RRSS) location systems. The obtained analytical results verify our intuitive expectations; the hyperbolic methods are sensitive to errors in network synchronization, RRRS methods to channel modelling errors, whereas DF methods are rather insensitive to systematic errors. However, the bias of DF methods is at its largest if the sensor location error is perpendicular to the line joining the sensor and the source. If the methods are compared based on overall accuracy, hyperbolic methods may be preferred in large sized networks, whereas the DF and RRSS methods may provide better accuracy in small sized networks. However, RRSS systems require a dense network in order to provide reliable results.
References
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine : Location is everything: positioning in wireless networks (a special issue). IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 2005., 22(3):
Sadler BM: Fundamentals of energy-constrained sensor network systems. IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine 2005, 20(8):17–35. part 2: tutorials
Foy WH: Position-location solutions by Taylor-series estimation. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems 1976, 12(2):187–193.
Torrieri DJ: Statistical theory of passive location systems. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems 1984, 20(2):183–198.
Kaplan D: Understanding GPS Principles and Applications. Artech House, Boston, Mass, USA; 1996.
Patwari N, Hero AO III, Perkins M, Correal NS, O'Dea RJ: Relative location estimation in wireless sensor networks. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing 2003, 51(8):2137–2148. 10.1109/TSP.2003.814469
Weiss AJ: On the accuracy of a cellular location system based on RSS measurements. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology 2003, 52(6):1508–1518. 10.1109/TVT.2003.819613
Slijepcevic S, Megerian S, Potkonjak M: Location errors in wireless embedded sensor networks: sources, models, and effect on applications. Mobile Computing and Communications Review 2002, 6(3):67–78. 10.1145/581291.581301
Sayed AH, Tarighat A, Khajehnouri N: Network-based wireless location: challenges faced in developing techniques for accurate wireless location information. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 2005, 22(4):24–40.
Gustafsson F, Gunnarsson F: Mobile positioning using wireless networks: possibilities and fundamental limitations based on available wireless network measurements. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 2005, 22(4):41–53.
Patwari N, Ash JN, Kyperountas S, Hero AO III, Moses RL, Correal NS: Locating the nodes: cooperative localization in wireless sensor networks. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 2005, 22(4):54–69.
Pham T, Sadler B, Papadopoulus H: Energy-based source localization via ad-hoc acoustic sensor network. Proceedings of IEEE Workshop on Statistical Signal Processing, September-October 2003, St. Louis, Mo, USA 387–390.
Savvides A, Garber WL, Moses RL, Srivastava MB: An analysis of error inducing parameters in multihop sensor node localization. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing 2005, 4(6):567–577.
Wu NE, Fowler ML: Aperture error mitigation via local-state estimation for frequency-based emitter location. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems 2003, 39(2):414–429. 10.1109/TAES.2003.1207254
Taylor JR: An Introduction to Error Analysis: The Study of Uncertainties in Physical Measurements. 2nd edition. University Science Books, Sausalito, Calif, USA; 1997.
Gezici S, Tian Z, Giannakis GB, et al.: Localization via ultra-wideband radios: a look at positioning aspects of future sensor networks. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 2005, 22(4):70–84.
Khuri AE: Advanced Calculus with Applications in Statistics. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, USA; 1993.
Carter GC: Time delay estimation for passive sonar signal processing. IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing 1981, 29(3):463–470. 10.1109/TASSP.1981.1163560
Wang X, Wang Z, O'Dea B: A TOA-based location algorithm reducing the errors due to non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology 2003, 52(1):112–116. 10.1109/TVT.2002.807158
Kay SM: Fundamendals of Statistical Signal Prosessing: Estimation Theory. PTR Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA; 1993.
Xia HH: Simplified analytical model for predicting path loss in urban and suburban environments. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology 1997, 46(4):1040–1046. 10.1109/25.653077
Sarkar TK, Ji Z, Kim K, Medouri A, Salazar-Palma M: A survey of various propagation models for mobile communication. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine 2003, 45(3):51–82. 10.1109/MAP.2003.1232163
Figel WG, Shepherd NH, Trammell WF: Vehicle location by a signal attenuation method. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology 1969, 18(3):105–109.
Horn RA, Johnson CR: Topics in Matrix Analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK; 1991.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
About this article
Cite this article
Saarnisaari, H., Bräysy, T. Systematic Errors and Location Accuracy in Wireless Networks. EURASIP J. Adv. Signal Process. 2006, 081787 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1155/ASP/2006/81787
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1155/ASP/2006/81787