Mercury: Cooperative Networks for Ubiquitous Localization and Navigation
First Prize of the IEEE ComSoc Student Competition “Communications Technology Changing the World”, IEEE Communications Society, 2016
This project provides a ubiquitous and highly accurate localization solution, especially in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) challenged environments, such as buildings, urban canyons, under tree canopies, and underground. We have developed and implemented network localization and navigation, a new paradigm that exploits the spatiotemporal cooperation and environmental knowledge. In particular, users help one another to estimate their positions, which circumvents the need for high-density infrastructure. The proposed solution, named Mercury, is platform-agnostic. This is demonstrated through its implementation in two different systems. In the first system, ultra-wideband (UWB) radios make range measurements with each other and exchange position distributions through UWB signals. In the second system, smartphones make range measurements through acoustic signals and communicate with each other through Bluetooth signals. Both systems have achieved satisfactory localization accuracy in a ubiquitous manner, even though the ranging technology, communication medium, and processor are different. The implemented systems are ready for technology transfer, enabling a variety of emerging wireless network applications.