Tracking and Relative Positioning with Mixed Signals of Opportunity

Chun Yang and Thao Nguyen

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	In Global Positioning System (GPS)-challenged environments, broadcast and wireless communications signals are used as alternatives via fingerprinting or trilateration for positioning and navigation. In trilateration, the time of flight of recognizable patterns of a signal of opportunity (SOOP) is determined from the time of departure (TOD) from its source and the time of arrival at a user. However, most SOOPs are neither synchronous nor cooperative. There is a need to deal with the unknown TOD. In this paper, relative ranges are generated from radio signals by time difference with respect to an initial known point (thus removing TOD) to enable relative positioning from the known initial point. The paper also considers a critical aspect of maintaining continuous tracking of signals of opportunity in the presence of mobile fading. To demonstrate, we built mobile testbeds and conducted field tests, which are presented in this paper together with an analysis of the results.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 62, Number 4
Pages:	291 - 311
Cite this article:	Export Citation https://doi.org/10.1002/navi.122
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