Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
∗ † †
Miklós Maróti Branislav Kusý György Balogh
† † †
Péter Völgyesi András Nádas Károly Molnár
† †
Sebestyén Dóra Ákos Lédeczi
ABSTRACT Keywords
We present a novel radio interference based sensor local- Sensor Networks, Localization, Location-Awareness, Radio
ization method for wireless sensor networks. The technique Interferometry, Ranging
relies on a pair of nodes emitting radio waves simultaneously
at slightly different frequencies. The carrier frequency of the 1. INTRODUCTION
composite signal is between the two frequencies, but has a
Many applications of wireless sensor networks (WSN) re-
very low frequency envelope. Neighboring nodes can mea-
quire the knowledge of where the individual nodes are lo-
sure the energy of the envelope signal as the signal strength.
cated [1, 2, 3]. Yet robust sensor localization is still an open
The relative phase offset of this signal measured at two re-
problem today. While there are many approaches in exis-
ceivers is a function of the distances between the four nodes
tence, they all have significant weaknesses that limit their
involved and the carrier frequency. By making multiple mea-
applicability to real world problems. Techniques based on
surements in an at least 8-node network, it is possible to
accurate—typically acoustic—ranging have limited range [4,
reconstruct the relative location of the nodes in 3D. Our
5, 6]. They need an actuator/detector pair that adds to the
prototype implementation on the MICA2 platform yields
cost and size of the platform. Furthermore, a considerable
an average localization error as small as 3 cm and a range of
number of applications require stealthy operation making
up to 160 meters. In addition to this high precision and long
ultrasound the only acoustic option. However, ultrasonic
range, the other main advantage of the Radio Interferomet-
methods have even more limited range and directionality
ric Positioning System (RIPS) is the fact that it does not
constraints [7, 8]. Methods utilizing the radio usually rely
require any sensors other than the radio used for wireless
on the received signal strength that is relatively accurate
communication.
in short ranges with extensive calibration, but imprecise be-
yond a few meters [8, 9, 10]. The simplest of methods deduce
Categories and Subject Descriptors rough location information from the message hop count [11].
In effect, they also use the radio signal strength, but they
C.2.4 [Computer-Communications Networks]: Distrib- quantize it to a single bit. Finally, many of the proposed
uted Systems; C.3 [Special-Purpose and Application- methods work in 2D only. For a recent summary of local-
Based Systems]: Real-time and Embedded Systems; J.2 ization methods and their performance refer to [8].
[Physical Sciences and Engineering]: Engineering In summary, existing WSN localization methods today
have either adequate accuracy or acceptable range, but not
both at the same time. Furthermore, the very physical phe-
General Terms nomenon they use—acoustics and radio signal strength—do
Algorithms, Design, Experimentation, Measurement, The- not show any promise of achieving the significant improve-
ory ment that is necessary to move beyond the current state
of the art. Our novel method, on the other hand, uses ra-
∗Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, 1326 dio interferometry and attains high accuracy and long range
Stevenson Center, Nashville, TN 37240, USA simultaneously.
†Institute for Software Integrated Systems, Vanderbilt Uni- Traditional radio interferometry has many applications in
versity, 2015 Terrace Place, Nashville, TN 37203, USA physics, geodesy and astronomy. The method is based on
two directional antennas measuring the radio signal from a
single source and performing cross correlation. The resul-
tant interference signal can be further analyzed to create
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for radio images of distant celestial objects, determine the rel-
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are ative location of two receivers very precisely, or conversely,
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies determine the location of a radio source when the location
bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to of the two receivers are known. A radio interferometer is
republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific an expensive device requiring tunable directional antennas,
permission and/or a fee.
SenSys’05, November 2–4, 2005, San Diego, California, USA. very high sampling rates and high-precision time synchro-
Copyright 2005 ACM 1-59593-054-X/05/0011 ...$5.00. nization. Hence, it is not directly applicable to WSNs.
1
The novel idea behind the proposed Radio Interferometric 2. INTERFEROMETRIC POSITIONING
Positioning System (RIPS) is to utilize two transmitters to Radio interferometric positioning exploits interfering ra-
create the interference signal directly. If the frequencies of dio waves emitted from two locations at slightly different
the two emitters are almost the same then the composite sig- frequencies to obtain the necessary ranging information for
nal will have a low frequency envelope that can be measured localization. The composite radio signal has a low beat fre-
by cheap and simple hardware readily available on a WSN quency and its envelope signal can be measured with low
node. Trying to use this signal to deduce information on the precision RF chips using the received signal strength indica-
positions of the two transmitters and the receiver directly tor (RSSI) signal. The phase offset of this signal depends on
would require tight synchronization of the nodes involved many factors, including the time instances when the trans-
mandating hardware support. Instead, we use the relative missions were started. However, the relative phase offset
phase offset of the signal at two receivers which is a func- between two receivers depends only on the four distances
tion of the relative positions of the four nodes involved and between the two transmitters and two receivers and on the
the carrier frequency. By making multiple measurements in wavelength of the carrier frequency. By measuring this rel-
an at least 8-node network, it is possible to reconstruct the ative phase offset at different carrier frequencies, one can
relative location of the nodes in 3D. calculate a linear combination of the distances between the
The key attribute of this method is that the phase offset nodes, and ultimately infer their relative position. First we
of a low frequency signal is measured, yet it corresponds to will prove these claims and then study the minimum number
the wavelength of the high-frequency carrier signal. Hence, of measurements necessary in order to be able to resolve the
we can use low precision techniques that are feasible on the phase ambiguities and localize the participating nodes.
highly resource constrained WSN nodes, yet we still achieve We model the radio RSSI circuitry in the following way.
high accuracy. The RSSI signal is the power of the incoming signal mea-
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next sured in dBm after it is mixed down to an intermediate fre-
section we provide the theoretical background behind ra- quency fIF . It is then low pass filtered with cutoff frequency
dio interferometric positioning. The subsequent section an- fcut (fcut fIF ). Let r(t) denote this filtered signal.
alyzes the different sources of error affecting the overall ac-
curacy. Then we describe our prototype implementation on Theorem 1. Let f2 < f1 be two close carrier frequencies
the MICA2 platform. It is followed by a discussion of the with δ = (f1 − f2 )/2, δ f2 , and 2δ < fcut . Furthermore,
technique used to get a distance metric out of noisy phase assume that a node receives the radio signal
offset measurements. In the subsequent section we present a
centralized localization algorithm that determines the node s(t) = a1 cos(2πf1 t + ϕ1 ) + a2 cos(2πf2 t + ϕ2 ) + n(t),
locations from the ranging data. We conclude the paper where n(t) is Gaussian noise. Then the filtered RSSI sig-
with an analysis of the data we gathered at field experi- nal r(t) is periodic with fundamental frequency f1 − f2 and
ments. absolute phase offset ϕ1 − ϕ2 .
B Proof. If the noise is temporarily neglected then the
mixed down intermediate frequency signal is
A
sIF (t) = a1 cos 2π(fIF + δ)t + ϕ1
dBC
dBD + a2 cos 2π(fIF − δ)t + ϕ2 . (1)
To obtain the signal power:
dAC dAD
s2IF (t) = a21 cos2 2π(fIF + δ)t + ϕ1 (2)
+ a22 cos 2
2π(fIF − δ)t + ϕ2
+ 2a1 a2 cos 2π(fIF + δ)t + ϕ1 cos 2π(fIF − δ)t + ϕ2 .
D
C Using the following trigonometric identities
1 cos(2x)
cos2 (x) =
+
2 2
cos(x + y) cos(x − y)
cos(x) cos(y) = +
2 2
we obtain
s2IF (t) = (a21 + a22 )/2 (3)
a21
+ cos 4π(fIF + δ)t + 2ϕ1
2
d AD − d BD + d BC − d AC a2
phase offset = 2π (mod 2π ) + 2 cos 4π(fIF − δ)t + 2ϕ2
λcarrier 2
+ a1 a2 cos 4πfIF t + ϕ1 + ϕ2
+ a1 a2 cos 4πδt + ϕ1 − ϕ2
Figure 1: Radio interferometric ranging technique.
where (a21 + a22 )/2 is the DC component.
2
Due to the nonlinear logarithmic distortion applied to Theorem 3. Assume that two nodes A and B transmit
s2IF (t), the resulting signal contains several new frequency pure sine waves at two close frequencies fA > fB , and two
components. They are the linear combinations of the fre- other nodes C and D measure the filtered RSSI signal. If
quency components i · 2δ + j · 2fIF in equation (3), where i fA − fB < 2 kHz, and dAC , dAD , dBC , dBD ≤ 1 km, then the
and j are non-negative integers. relative phase offset of rC (t) and rD (t) is
The low pass filter eliminates all high frequency compo-
dAD − dBD + dBC − dAC
nents (j > 0). Hence, 2π (mod 2π),
c/f
h
r(t) = k · log (a21 + a22 )/2 + ñ(t) where f = (fA + fB )/2.
i Proof. Using δ = (fA − fB )/2 we can rewrite ϑC − ϑD
+ a1 a2 cos 2π(2δ)t + ϕ1 − ϕ2 (4) from the conclusion of Theorem 2 as
where ñ(t) is band-limited Gaussian white noise and k is dAD − dAC + dBC − dBD
ϑC − ϑD = 2π (8)
some constant. Thus, the fundamental frequency of r(t) is c/f
2δ = f1 − f2 . As the logarithm does not change the phase, dAD − dAC − dBC + dBD
+ 2π (mod 2π).
its absolute phase offset is ϕ1 − ϕ2 . Note that the amplitude c/δ
of the harmonics are significantly smaller than that of the
According to our assumption δ ≤ 1 kHz, so c/δ ≥ 300 km.
fundamental component.
Therefore, the second term can be disregarded.
We will use capital roman letters to denote nodes. The For any four nodes A,B,C and D we define
distance between nodes X and Y will be denoted by dXY .
The speed of light is c. dABCD = dAD − dBD + dBC − dAC , (9)
and for any frequency f
Theorem 2. Assume that two nodes A and B transmit
pure sine waves at two close frequencies fA > fB such that dABCD
ϑABCD (f ) = 2π (mod 2π). (10)
fA − fB < fcut , and two other nodes C and D measure the c/f
filtered RSSI signal. Then the relative phase offset of rC (t) By the previous theorem we can effectively measure ϑABCD (f ),
and rD (t) is which equals dABCD modulo the wave length of the carrier
d − dAC dBC − dBD frequency. By making multiple measurements with different
AD
2π + (mod 2π). carrier frequencies, one can reconstruct the value of dABCD ,
c/fA c/fB
which is the principal ranging data of RIPS. It is trivial to
Proof. Let X be either A or B, and Y be either C or D. verify that the following identities hold
Let tX denote the time when node X starts to transmit, and
aXY denote the amplitude of the attenuated signal transmit- dABCD = −dBACD = −dABDC = dCDAB . (11)
ted by X and received by Y . The received composite signal Note that in Theorem 3 we explicitly assumed that fA >
at node Y is fB . If the opposite holds, then the frequency of the envelope
signal becomes |fA −fB | and its phase offset 2π−ϑABCD (f ).
sY (t) = aAY cos 2πfA (t − tA − dAY /c) (5)
This follows from the fact that dABCD = −dBACD .
+ aBY cos 2πfB (t − tB − dBY /c) + n(t)
Theorem 4. In a network of n nodes there are at most
= aAY cos 2πfA t − 2πfA (tA + dAY /c) 3
2
(n − 2)(n − 3)
independent interference measurements that
+ aBY cos 2πfB t − 2πfB (tB + dBY /c) + n(t) can be made.
after sufficient amount of time, that is when t is greater than Proof. We fix two nodes X and Y of the network and
tA + dAY /c and tB + dBY /c. Using Theorem 1, the absolute consider the following two classes of ranges
phase offset of the envelope signal rY (t) is
(M1) dXU Y V , where X, Y, U, V are all different nodes, and
ϑY = −2πfA (tA + dAY /c) + 2πfB (tB + dBY /c). (6) (M2) dXY U V , where X, Y, U, V are all different nodes and
Now consider the two receivers C and D. The relative U < V in some fixed linear order.
phase offset between rC (t) and rD (t) is Clearly, there are (n − 2)(n − 3) ranges of the first type
ϑC − ϑD = −2πfA (tA + dAC /c) + 2πfB (tB + dBC /c) (7) and one half of this number in the second type. This gives
3
2
(n−2)(n−3) measurements. We claim that all other ranges
+ 2πfA (tA + dAD /c) − 2πfB (tB + dBD /c) can be calculated from these.
= 2πfA /c · (dAD − dAC ) + 2πfB /c · (dBC − dBD ). Take nodes A, B, C and D. Then it is not hard to verify
that
From this the statement of the theorem immediately fol-
lows. dXAY C − dXBY C + dXBY D − dXAY D
= (dXC − dAC + dAY − dXY )
For wireless sensor nodes, due to their limited range and − (dXC − dBC + dBY − dXY )
high carrier frequency relative to their cutoff frequency, the (12)
+ (dXD − dBD + dBY − dXY )
formula of the measured relative phase offset can be sim-
plified. This gives the precursor of the definition of range − (dXD − dAD + dAY − dXY )
following the next theorem. = dAD − dBD + dBC − dAC = dABCD .
3
This proves that every range can be calculated from ranges observable in the measured phase offset of the envelope sig-
of the form dXU Y V where U and V are arbitrary nodes. nal. This source of error can be minimized by shortening
However, not all these are directly measurable, because for the length of a single phase measurement, and by minimiz-
example X cannot be the same node as U or V . The two ing the chance of mechanical, electrical and other kinds of
degenerate cases are shocks the RF chip is subjected to. In our implementation
one measurement lasts for 29 ms so frequency drift is likely
dXXY U = dXU − dXU + dXY − dXY = 0, and
negligible. Phase noise, on the other hand, may have a sig-
dXU Y Y = dXY − dU Y + dU Y − dXY = 0. (13) nificant effect on phase measurement accuracy.
Therefore, dABCD can be calculated from ranges from class (M1) Multipath effects—the RF signal takes different paths when
whenever X 6= C, D and Y 6= A, B. propagating from a transmitter to a receiver, causing am-
Using the equation dABCD = dCDAB , we can rewrite plitude and phase fluctuations in the received signal. In
equation (12) as Theorem 3 we assumed that the radio signal travels from A
to C for exactly dAC /c seconds, but this assumption does
dXCY A − dXCY B + dXDY B − dXDY A = dABCD , (14) not hold in the presence of multipath fading. We expect that
which allows to calculate dABCD whenever X 6= A, B and in many cases higher level algorithms can filter out incon-
Y 6= C, D. If neither (12) nor (14) can be used to calculate sistent phase offset measurements corrupted by multipath
dABCD then it must be the case that {X, Y } = {A, B} or effects.
{X, Y } = {C, D}. In these cases, however, dABCD can be Antenna orientation—the change of the time of flight from
directly obtained from a measurement in class (M2) using the transmitter to the receiver introduced by the different
equations (11). orientation or shape of the antennas used. Regardless of the
orientation of antennas, the received radio signal component
Note that the previous theorem gives only an upper bound in Equation (5) originating from A and received by C is
on the number of linearly independent set of measurable always
ranges in an n-node network. Since the submission of our
paper, Lambert Meertens significantly improved this bound aAC cos 2πfA (t − tA − dAC /c) .
to n(n − 3)/2, and proved that to be sharp [12]. The frequency fA and transmission time tA are constants,
Notice that any solution to the resulting system of equa- and by Theorem 1 the amplitude aAC of the signal does not
tions is invariant under translations, rotations and reflection. influence the phase offset of the signal strength. It is theo-
Therefore, the number of unknowns is 2n−3 in 2D and 3n−6 retically possible that the time of flight component dAC /c is
in 3D. In a 6-node network there are 9 linearly independent influenced by the orientation, but this was not empirically
measurements, using the sharp bound, just enough for the verified.
9 unknowns. However, we need at least 8 nodes in 3D to
get more measurements (20) than the number of unknowns RSSI measurement delay jitter—the jitter of the delay be-
(18). tween the antenna receiving the radio signal and the RF
chip delivering the RSSI signal to the signal processing unit.
This jitter introduce a relative phase offset error at the two
3. SOURCES OF ERROR receivers. According to our experiments, the jitter is not
The goal of this section is to list and briefly discuss the noticeable.
sources of error of RIPS. In most cases further research is
RSSI Signal-to-Noise Ratio—the signal strength relative
necessary to properly study these errors.
to noise of the rC (t) signal. The SNR mainly depends on
We will consider two nodes transmitting unmodulated ra-
the physical distance between transmitters and receiver, as
dio waves at two close frequencies and two receivers mea-
the amplitudes of the transmitted signals are exponentially
suring the absolute phase offset of the received signal r(t).
decreasing in space. The SNR value also depends strongly
We assume that the absolute phase offset is measured at a
on the hardware implementation of the RSSI detector circuit
fixed time instant that is established between the receivers
at the receiver.
using some form of time synchronization. The relative phase
offset is then calculated by subtracting the absolute phase Signal processing error—the error introduced by the sig-
offsets of the two receivers. nal processing algorithm that calculates the phase offset of
The sources of error are the following: rC (t). This is a noisy, logarithmically distorted, low fre-
quency sinusoid, that can be approximated by a sine wave
Carrier frequency inaccuracy—the difference between the
with additive noise. The frequency and phase estimation
nominal and the actual carrier frequency of the transmitted
of sine waves is a well-studied problem (see e.g. [13, 14]).
signal. According to Theorem 3, the phase measurement
The theoretical Cramér-Rao bound can be approximated by
error introduced by an average 1 kHz carrier frequency in-
various signal processing algorithms for a given SNR.
accuracy for ranges dABCD less than 1 km is
Time synchronization error—the time synchronization er-
dABCD dABCD 2π · 1 km
2π − 2π ≤ = 0.33% · 2π, ror of the time instance when the receivers measure their
c/f c/(f + 1000) c/1 kHz absolute phase offset of the received signal strength. On
independently of the value of f . representative hardware it is possible to establish a time
synchronization point with better than 2 µs precision uti-
Carrier frequency drift and phase noise—the phase noise lizing a single radio message (see [15]). Assuming a 2 kHz
and drift of the actual carrier frequency of the transmitted interference frequency, this translates to %0.4 · 2π phase off-
signal during the measurement. Theorem 1 relies on the set error.
fact that the frequencies of the emitted signals are stable.
Any phase noise or carrier frequency drift will be directly
4
4. IMPLEMENTATION The relatively wide frequency band is necessary for calcu-
We have used the MICA2 mote platform with the TinyOS lating the actual range from the phase offset differences (see
operating system [16, 17] for our prototype implementation. Section 5). The fine-grained frequency tuning is needed to
As stated in Section 2, the primary objective is to have achieve the separation of the two transmitters as required by
two nodes transmit sinusoid waves at close frequencies to Theorem 3 in Section 2. We require the short-term stabil-
produce the interference signal and at least two receivers to ity of the carrier frequency because the frequency and phase
calculate the phase offset difference of the observed signals. offset analysis at the receivers uses averaging over multi-
It is necessary to measure phase offset differences at multiple ple periods to increase the SNR. The timing precision of
frequencies to be able to calculate the range. Specifically, the measured RSSI signal is also critical because the RSSI
our prototype RIPS implementation consists of the following measurement delay affects the relative phase offset error as
steps: discussed in Section 3. Finally, transmission at different
power levels is required since the distance of the two trans-
(1) selecting a pair of transmitters from a group of motes mitters from a receiver can vary up to the point where the
participating in the localization and scheduling their closer transmitter completely overwhelms the signal from
transmission times, the more distant one.
Even though the radio chip is highly configurable with
(2) fine-grain calibration of the radios of senders to trans- many favorable properties, it has certain limitations that
mit at close frequencies, we had to overcome:
(3) transmission of a pure sine wave by the two senders at (1) the time required to calibrate the radio chip has a large
multiple frequencies, jitter of up to 5 ms,
(4) analysis of the RSSI samples of the interference signal (2) the frequency synthesizer is not accurate enough, we
at each of the receivers to estimate the frequency and have seen carrier frequency deviations that depended
phase offset of the signal, on the temperature and voltage levels,
5
send sync
msg
acquire() calibrate() transmit() channel and tuning parameters the following way:
Sender1
receive sync
TS1 TS1+t1
acquire()
TS1+t2
calibrate()
TS1+t3
transmit()
f = 430.1 + 0.526 · channel + 65 · 10−6 · tuning.
msg
Sender2 One of the limitations of the chip is that the actual fre-
TS2 TS2+t1 TS2+t2 TS2+t3
receive sync
msg
acquire() calibrate() receive() quency for a specific channel can differ from the nominal
Receiver
TR TR+t1 TR+t2 TR+t3 value by up to 2 kHz. Since the frequency range where we
Timers fire Timers fire Timers fire
can measure the interference accurately is limited by the
Time
time constraint for a measurement (29 ms) as well as the
limited sampling rate of the RSSI signal on MICA2 plat-
form (9 kHz), we need to ensure that the difference between
Figure 2: The synchronization schedule that aligns
the transmission frequencies is in the range of 200 Hz to
the start of the transmission and reception at mul-
800 Hz.
tiple nodes.
.
4.00
-3.90
-3.58
-3.25
-2.93
-2.60
-2.28
-1.95
-1.63
-1.30
-0.98
-0.65
-0.33
0.00
0.33
0.65
0.98
1.30
1.63
1.95
2.28
2.60
2.93
3.25
3.58
3.90
the radio stack attaches a precise timestamp to the packet,
when it is sent from the mote. Each receiver converts the Radio tuning parameter (kHz)
synchronization point to its local time by using the arrival
timestamp of this message. The converted value is used Figure 3: A receiving node observes the frequency of
to set up a local timer and is re-broadcasted. This simple interference of two transmitters. The first transmit-
protocol enabled us to extend interferometric measurements ter changes the carrier frequency in 325 Hz steps.
beyond the data communication range. It was shown in [15]
that it is possible to set up synchronization points this way We implemented a frequency tuning algorithm that deter-
with microsecond accuracy on the MICA2 platform. We mines the radio settings for the transmitters corresponding
start calibration and signal transmission/reception at fixed to the same frequency. Let the transmitters be set to the
times after the synchronization point. The combined error same channel and f1 , f2 be the actual signal frequencies.
of synchronization and clock skew over a time period of less We found the maximum carrier frequency error to be less
than 1 second is still just a few microseconds. than 2 kHz, so we can assume that |f1 − f2 | < 2 · 2 kHz =
The external synchronization ensures that the receivers 4 kHz. The first transmitter emits a sine wave at frequen-
and transmitters send the receive and send commands to the cies f1 (i) = f1 + i · 325 Hz, i = −15, −14, . . . , 15 using
radio chip at the same time. This does not necessarily mean the tuning capability of the radio chip, while the second
that the receivers start receiving data from the ADC at the transmitter keeps transmitting at frequency f2 . A receiver
same time. To compensate for this, each receiver records node analyzes the frequency of the interference signal which
the times when the RSSI samples arrived and adjusts the is |f1 (i) − f2 | (see Figure 3). Using the known step size
measured absolute phase accordingly. (325 Hz), the receiver can filter out the noise and faulty fre-
quency measurements and determine the value of i for which
the interference frequency is close to 0. The receiver prop-
4.3 Tuning agates this information back to the first transmitter who
The CC1000 radio chip needs to perform internal calibra- consequently determines the settings for the radio chip such
tion of the frequency synthesizer PLL to adjust it to the that the interference frequency is in the required range.
frequency and compensate for supply voltage and temper- It should be noted that the frequency error for two nodes
ature variations. The self-calibration is a time consuming does not stay constant for different channels. Observing it
process that takes up to 34 ms according to the Chipcon at two channels 50 MHz apart, we have seen up to 300 Hz
datasheet [18]. Moreover, since the PLL can generate only change. However, as the frequency error is mainly caused by
a limited scale of frequencies, it is advised to recalibrate the imprecision of the crystal that drives the radio chip, it is
it for frequencies more than 1 MHz apart. We found it approximately linear in frequency. Therefore, we can mea-
useful to index the available frequency band (400 MHz to sure the correct tuning parameter for two different channels
460 MHz) by frequency channels, so that transmitting on a and interpolate these values to obtain the radio parameters
different channel mandates recalibration. We define chan- for the other channels.
nel 0 to be at 430.1 MHz and the channel separation to be
approximately 0.526 MHz. 4.4 Frequency and phase estimation
A key benefit of CC1000 chip is that the PLL can gener- Due to the limited communication bandwidth the sam-
ate different frequencies at a very fine frequency resolution pled RSSI values need to be processed on the motes. The
(65 Hz) once calibrated to a particular channel. We index signal processing algorithm estimates the frequency and the
these fine-grained frequencies with frequency tuning and re- phase of the RSSI signal and transmits these and a quality
quire no recalibration when changing the tuning parameter. indicator of the measurement to the base station. The al-
The nominal frequency f can be then obtained from the gorithm is divided to online and post-processing parts. The
6
online part is executed upon each A/D converter interrupt good peaks, a small price to pay for rejecting false peaks,
for 256 consecutive samples. Afterwards, more extensive which could significantly impair the phase calculation. Fre-
post-processing is performed on the data computed in the quency is calculated as the reciprocate of the average period
online phase. length.
Hardware limitations on the mote make computationally The phase of the RSSI signal is estimated by the av-
expensive signal processing techniques prohibitive. The ADC erage phase of the filtered peaks. Since small errors in
sampling rate (9 kHz) and the clock frequency of the 8 bit the frequency estimation can result in a significant error
microcontroller (7.4 MHz), allows roughly 820 CPU cycles in the phase calculation, we compute the phases relative to
per sample for online processing. Post processing is lim- the center of the sample buffer, thereby reducing the ac-
ited by a somewhat less strict deadline: several measure- cumulated phase error due to an inaccurate frequency es-
ments are made between time synchronization points, leav- timate [13]. The algorithm also employs a basic phase un-
ing around 10,000 cycles per measurement for post-process- wrapping method to average values near 0 and 2π properly.
ing. The lack of floating point hardware support and mem- Since floating point calculations are prohibitive on the
ory space limitations further restrict the domain of feasible mote, hand optimized fixed point arithmetic is used through-
algorithms. The use of standard, but computationally ex- out the frequency and phase computations. The estimated
pensive solutions, such as Fourier analysis or autocorrela- frequency, phase and amplitude tuple is finally sent back to
tion, is not feasible. the base station.
Figure 4 shows a representative RSSI signal recorded by
a mote. Peak detection is performed on-line in the ADC in- 4.5 Scheduling
terrupt routine eliminating the need for large sample buffers There are two levels of scheduling involved in the inter-
and shortening the post-processing time. First, the raw sam- ference measurement process:
ples are filtered by a moving average component in order to
enhance the SNR. Next the minimum and maximum signal A) High level scheduling is responsible for selecting the
values—essential parameters to our adaptive peak detection pair of transmitters and should minimize the number
algorithm—are acquired from the leading 24 samples. This of interference measurements while producing enough
first part of the data series is long enough to contain at least independent measurements to localize nodes uniquely
one full period. The acquired amplitude value serves as a in 3-dimensions. As given at the end of Section 2, for
quality indicator of the measurement. Later on, samples a group of n nodes that form a single hop network, we
above (below) a threshold currently set at 20% of the am- have at most n(n − 3)/2 choices for the independent
plitude from the maximum (minimum) value are identified interference measurements. The number of unknowns
as high (low) amplitudes in the filtered signal. Peaks are de- is 3n − 6 in 3-dimensional localization, so for groups of
fined as center points of two consecutive high level threshold nodes larger than 8 we get an over-determined system
crossings (non-high → high, followed by a high → non-high of equations. In our current implementation, the base
step). Peaks are discarded in this phase if the signal has not station selects all possible pairs of transmitters while
crossed the low threshold since the last peak, minimizing all other nodes within their range act as receivers.
the risk of false positive detections.
B) Low level scheduling coordinates the activities of the
two transmitters and multiple receivers. The frequency
260
RSSI raw signal
tuning algorithm and the phase offset estimation proc-
Filtered signal ess described earlier in this section both involve mul-
240 Minimum
Maximum tiple steps that require proper frequency calibration
Low threshold
220 High threshold
and timing. Currently, 13 different frequency chan-
False peaks nels 5 MHz apart are used between 400 and 460 MHz.
Filtered peaks
Furthermore, the scheduler executes the phase offset
Amplitude
200
5. RANGE CALCULATION
From a set of phase measurements for the frequencies
Figure 4: Peak detection and filtering. f1 , . . . , fk the following Diophantine equations can be for-
mulated
The post-processing phase works exclusively on peak in- dABCD = λi ni + γi = λj nj + γj , (15)
dexes, identified and stored by the online algorithm. After
ϑi
it determines the shortest period between subsequent peaks, where λi = c/fi is the wave length, γi = λi 2π is the phase
it accumulates the sum of the periods that are not longer offset relative to the wave length, ϑi is the measured phase
than 130% of the shortest one (to compensate for the very offset, and ni is an integer. We need a set of λi ’s so that their
rare false positive detections in the first phase). Peaks on least common multiple is larger than the possible domain of
both ends of an outlier period are marked as false peaks and dABCD . In case of the 433 MHz band, having 5 MHz sepa-
discarded. This simple and draconian rule might throw out ration means that three different measurements are enough
7
assuming perfect phase estimation. The concept is illus- (4) Sort the subset according to error.
trated in Figure 5.
(5) Remove the worst 20% of the individuals in the sub-
set, then generate new individuals by selecting random
solution
parents from the best 20% and applying genetic oper-
2pi ators on the parents.
λi dABCD
(6) Go to step (2).
8
80 meters. That means that the interferometric technique
1000
can have twice the range as the digital communication im-
Frequency (Hz)
800
plemented on the MICA2 mote using the same radio. In the
600
remaining discussion we’ll call this distance the interfero- 400
metric radio range. 200 FFT
So far we have only talked about the maximum distance 0
Mote
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
between a transmitter and a receiver. There is no direct CC1000 tuning parameter
The grid was selected because of the relative ease of set- 0.2
9
The algorithm measuring the interference signal frequency
nal. The amplitude shows strong correlation with the error 600
of the range estimate. Currently, we use a constant am- 500
plitude threshold (12% of maximum A/D range) to discard 400
measurements with low SNR. This filtering can be carried 300
out locally on each mote acting as receiver, but currently it 200
is done on the base station. 100
The interference signal is measured by all the nodes in 0
radio range. Due to measurement errors, the frequency es-
-0.20
-0.16
-0.12
-0.08
-0.04
0.00
0.04
0.08
0.12
0.16
0.20
timates will vary at different motes. Nodes that measure
the frequency with a large error will likely have a bad phase error (m)
estimate also. Therefore, these measurements need to be fil-
tered out as well. The filtering is carried out by identifying
a narrow frequency window that has the maximum number
Figure 10: Central portion of the error distribution
of frequency estimates in it. All the measurements outside
of the filtered ranges.
of this window are discarded. This process can also be car-
ried out on the motes, but it would require communication
among the active receivers. Currently it is done on the base
precision of overall localization using RIPS if one can elimi-
station.
nate the “side lobes” of the distribution. We can either de-
Finally, we calculate the range for a given pair of trans-
velop more advanced filtering methods to discard measure-
mitter receiver pairs only if the number of frequency chan-
ments with full wavelength errors, increase the accuracy of
nels with good phase offset measurements is higher than a
the phase measurements, or increase the frequency band be-
threshold. Currently this limit is set to 10.
yond the [400, 460] MHz range. Even a small improvement
After these three filtering stages, the ratio of the measure-
in phase estimation accuracy could potentially dramatically
ments with less then one quarter wavelength error can be
increase the ratio of good to bad measurements. Intuitively
improved by approximately 50% as illustrated on Figure 9.
there is a threshold in the phase measurement error where
it is not large enough to cause the range estimator to miss
3500
by a full wavelength. An analytical evaluation is needed to
number of range measurements
error (m)
ure 12 with the three anchor nodes depicted by large circles.
At this resolution and localization accuracy the small circles
showing the actual and estimated positions overlap.
4
number of nodes
700
number of range measurements
3
600
500 2
400
1
300
200 0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
100
error (m)
0
-2 -1.8 -1.6 -1.4 -1.2 -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
error (m)
Figure 9: Error distribution of the filtered ranges. To test the scalability of the approach we reran the lo-
calization utilizing only 20% of the raw ranging data.
We
Figure 10 shows the central portion of the error distribu- selected 48 transmitter pairs out of the possible 16
2
= 240
tion after filtering. The accuracy of these over 2000 measure- randomly. After filtering, approximately 1000 measurements
ments clearly demonstrates the potentially extreme high- remained with 28% of them shifted by integer multiples of
10
the wavelengths. This ratio is about the same as for the The number of channels used for the actual phase measure-
whole data set. The localization algorithm achieved 5 cm av- ments could also be decreased somewhat if the phase esti-
erage accuracy, while the worst error remained under 10 cm. mation accuracy can be improved. Finally, the mote imple-
mentation code is not fully optimized in this first version of
RIPS. We estimate that the entire localization process could
be carried out in under 5 minutes for smaller scale setups.
Large setups would require more time, but the process scales
well because the network can be automatically divided into
sets of non-overlapping regions determined by the radio in-
terferometric range where the procedure can be carried out
concurrently. The design of an efficient scheduling algorithm
is an area of further research.
11
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