Title:  Theory and Development of MAC Layer Assisted Localization Techniques in Wireless Environments with Multiple Sensors and Multiple Emitters

Committee: 

Dr. Coyle, Advisor       

Dr. Barry, Chair

Dr. Anderson

Dr. Abler

Abstract:

The objective of the proposed research is to improve localization in wireless environments. Our focus will be on environments with multiple sensors and multiple emitters as found, for example, in a football stadium during a game. The approach will be to exploit the structure provided by the complete communications protocol stack compared to traditional approaches using only the physical layer. To achieve this goal, the research effort has produced a software radio testbed to collect RF data and analysis demonstrating the benefits of MAC layer assisted localization. The anticipated outcomes are: (1) A testbed in Bobby Dodd football stadium consisting of three spatially distributed, time-synchronized RF sensor nodes collecting complex baseband samples for algorithm development and validation. (2) A modeling framework and analytical results on the benefits of exploiting the structure of the MAC layer for associating measurements to emitters. (3) Data collection techniques for time difference of arrival measurements that reduce the communications cost required between sensors. The results are expected to improve localization accuracy in wireless environments when multiple sensors and multiple emitters are present.