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Location related products are the next major class of value added services
that mobile network operators can offer their customers. Not only will operators be able
to offer entirely new services to customers, but they will also be able to offer
factors:
Competition
The need to find new revenue enhancing and differentiating value added
services has been increasing and will continue to increase over time.
Regulation
ruling in June 1996 (Docket no. 94-102) that requires all mobile network operators to
provide location information on all calls to “911”, the emergency services. The FCC
mandated that by 1st October 2001, all wireless 911 calls must be pinpointed within125
meters, 67% of the time. On December 24 1998, the FCC amended its ruling to allow
terminal based solutions as well as network based ones (CC Docket No. 94-102, Waivers
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There are a number of regulations that location based services must
comply with, not least of all to protect the privacy of the user. Mobile Streams believes
that it is essential to comply with all such regulations fully. However, such regulations
are only the starting point for such services- there are possibilities for a high degree of
Technology
positioning technologies. For example, in 1999, Benefon, a Finnish GSM and NMT
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NEEDS OF CELLULAR POSITIONING
Location-Sensitive billing
Different tariff can be provided depending upon the position of the cell
phone. This allows the operator without a copper cable based PSTN to offer competitive
A significant number of emergency calls like US.911 are coming from cell
phones, and in most of the cases the caller can not provide the accurate information about
their position. As a real life example let us take the following incident. In February 1997
a person became stranded along a highway during a winter blizzard (Associated press
1997).She used her cellular phone to call for help but could not provide her location due
to white-out conditions. To identify the callers approximate position authorities asked her
to tell them when she could hear the search plane flying above. From the time of her first
call forty hours elapsed before a ground rescue team reached her. An automatic
positioning system would have allowed rescuers to reach her far sooner.
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Enhanced network performance
enable the communication network operator to take better decisions on when to hand
over from one cell to next. Macroscopically, long-term monitoring of mobile telephone
Many services envisaged under the ITS initiative will require position
ability to position a mobile telephone could enable services such as providing information
to travelers, more effective dispatch of vehicles in fleets, and detecting traffic incidents
and congestion
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POSITIONING SYSTEM CLASSIFICATION
measurements are made and where the position information is used. Two broad
classifications are made: self positioning and remote positioning. The classification is
Self positioning
may be collocated with the receiver. The position information can be transmitted to
distant stations from the positioning receiver if needed. An example of self positioning is
GPS.
Remote positioning
In remote positioning there will be receivers at more than one location, the
object to be positioned being the transmitter. The signal measurement is done at the
receivers and the data collected are transmitted to a central site for processing.
Indirect positioning
receiver to a remote site or vice versa. A self positioning system sending data to a remote
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site is called indirect remote positioning system and the other is called indirect self
positioning system
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POSITIONING TECHNIQUES
There are a variety of ways in which position can be derived from the
measurement of signals and these can be applied to any cellular system including GSM.
The important measurements are the Time of Arrival (TOA), the Time Difference of
Arrival (TDOA), the Angle of Arrival (AOA) and Carrier phase. All these measurement
put the object to be positioned on a particular locus. Multiple measurements give multiple
loci and the point of their intersection gives the position. If the density of the base
stations is such that more measurements can be done than required then a least square
approach can be used. If the measurements are too few in number the loci will intersect at
In the following discussion we assume that the mobile station and base
station are lying in the same plane. This is approximately true for most networks unless
propagation time of a signal from the mobile phone to a base station. Each measurement
fixes the position of the mobile on a circle. With two stations there will be two circle and
they can intersect in a maximum of two points. This gives rise to an ambiguity and it is
making a propagation time measurement to a third base station. The TOA measurement
requires exact time synchronization between the base stations and the receiver should
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have an accurate clock, so that the receiver knows the exact time of transmission and an
destination and echoed back to the source can be made. This does not require exact
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A system that makes use of TOA for positioning can be called as circular-
circular-circular system.
A mobile phone can listen to a series of base station and measure the time
difference between each pair of arrival. Each TDOA measurement fixes the position of
the mobile phone on a hyperbola. With more than two stations there will be more than
two hyperbola and they intersect at a unique point. This is a self positioning system. The
inverse approach yield a remote positioning system i.e. each base station listen to the
mobile station and measure the TOA and sent each TOA to a central site where the
TDOA measurement is made and the position is estimated. A positioning system based
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An important issue in TDOA approach is the requirement of time
positioning system the base stations are the transmitters. The transmitted signal should
leave the transmitters at the same time. Otherwise there will be a bias error in the
hyperbolic locus. In remote positioning the base stations are the receivers. There must be
a known relationship between the receiver clocks at the base station, or again bias error
will result.
station to a mobile station (or mobile station to base station) is measured. The locus is a
straight line. With two measurement two straight lines are obtained and the uniquely
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Carrier Phase
The phase of the carrier has the potential to provide position information.
The receiver can measure the phase of the carrier but it can not measure the integer
number of cycles between transmitter and receiver. Another problem is the need of
maintaining continuous lock on the carrier signal. Despite of the problems the carrier
phase method is successfully used in the GPS. The application of carrier phase
positioning to GSM will be challenging due to the problems associated reconstructing the
carrier from the Gaussian minimum shift keying modulated signal, with no guarantee that
and so is able to be used as the Location Finding System for existing subscribers but is
less accurate than the other methods employed. Some would argue however that the
accuracy of COO in cities is more than adequate for information services owing to the
small cell size. The accuracy of COO is though questionable when the Location Finding
today. This scheme is used to meet Phase 1 911 emergency services requirements in the
USA, wireless office location specific billing applications and some location-specific
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In this system, the mobile network base station (BTS) cell area is used as
the location of the caller. Positioning accuracy generally depends upon the size of the
cell. Although other schemes offer higher degrees of positioning accuracy than cell of
origin, its main advantages are that speed of response in getting a location fix is fast
(typically around three seconds) and that as no handset or network upgrade is required, it
Heterogeneous systems
in which TOA and AOA methods are mixed. Mixing of positioning system has
advantages e.g. circular angle positioning system can measurement using a single base
station.
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PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS
There are many error sources that degrade the performance of the
positioning system. The measure of the RMS deviation from the measured position (x^,
y^) about the position (x, y).this is called RMS accuracy in two dimension and is given
by the formula
The RMS accuracy is a function of the geometry of the base stations and
accuracy of raw locus measurement. The locus errors impose a limit on the accuracy that
can be achieved, but the relative geometry of the base station to the mobile station will
further degrade the accuracy. The amount by which errors are degraded by geometry is
called dilution of precision (DOP). When developing a positioning system the designer
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REVIEW OF GSM
GSM 900 uses two 25 MHz blocks of the radio frequency spectrum, called
uplink and downlink. Each block is divided into125 frequency channels of 200 kHz.
Other systems derived from GSM specifications have similar frequency channel
structure.
frequency channel, dividing it in to time slots of 577 µ s duration. Blocks of eight time
slots are grouped in to form a frame. Frames in turn, are grouped in to multi-frames and
super-frames.
role such as carrying user payload (traffic channels), coordinating base station and mobile
channels), and transmitting system parameters (broadcast channels). These logic channels
are mapped in to predetermined time slots of particular frames within the multi-frame
sequence.
slots using a burst structure. GSM defines a number of burst types with differing formats.
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The format for a normal burst, the most commonly used burst structure, is indicated in
fig.4. Of particular note in the context of positioning is the 26-bit training sequence which
is located in the middle of the burst. This is a pseudo-random sequence chosen for its
correlation properties. By cross-correlating a local copy of the training sequence with the
sequence in the received burst, a GSM receiver is able to estimate the impulse response
of the radio channel as an aid in demodulating the bits in the burst. This training sequence
is also useful for time based positioning measurements. A positioning receiver is able to
the GSM synchronization burst transmitted by all the base stations on the synchronization
channel (SCH).
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The area covered by GSM network is divided in to a number of cells, each
served by its own base station, called a base transceiver station (BTS). Each cell is
frequency pairs. More than one BTS may be grouped together under the control of a base
station controller (BSC). In turn, several BSCs are controlled by a mobile service center
(MSC), which handles tasks such as call routing and serves as the interface between the
mobile network and the fixed telephone network. In GSM specification a mobile
implications for positioning. One of these is the use of sectored cells. In this case BTSs of
more than one cell may be located at a particular site, each BTS serving only a sector of
the area around that site. A common configuration is to have three collocated BTSs, each
providing a 120 degree coverage pattern. Where such a configuration is in use, the
constraint on the BTS coverage pattern offers extra information for use by a positioning
system.
themselves to measurement of time and indeed there are also higher-level features of
GSM signaling which measure time and could be used for positioning. GSM is a TDMA
system, the successful operation of which requires that all signals arrive at the BTSs at
the appropriate time. Since the signals arriving at the base stations originate from
different distances, the time at which the signals are sent must be varied. GSM achieves
this by having each BTS send each MS connected to it a timing advance (TA), which is
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the amount by which the MS must advance the timing of its transmission to ensure that it
time differences between the epochs of the different BTSs in its vicinity. These
measurements are called observed time differences (OTDs) and are used to facilitate
handover by estimating the amount the timing of the mobile would have to be advanced
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LOCUS MEASUREMENT WITHIN GSM
SPECIFICATION
There are three ways that position loci can be derived using the signaling
aspects inherent in GSM specification. Propagation time using TAs, TDOA using
observed time difference of arrival (OTD) and angle of arrival from the sector
information.
For this the mobile station should be artificially forced to listen to more than two Base
Transceiver Stations (BTS). There are two difficulties with this scheme. First, artificially
forced handover to sub optimal BTS will degrade call quality and reduce system capacity.
Second, under GSM specification TA is reported in units of bit period, which equates a
locus accuracy of 554m. This is an optimistic value for accuracy, since multi-path will
degrade the accuracy further. The rms accuracy of such a system is likely to be even
handover, they are potentially greater utility for positioning than TAs. Under the current
positioning system. The GSM specification does not require that the network to be
synchronized. The level of uncertainty in the degree of synchronization will even further
degrade the accuracy of a GSM positioning system which simply operates with the
current specifications.
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Some networks use sectored cells. A mobile connected to a sectored base
station can be crudely located using knowledge of the base station’s reduced geographic
insufficient number of measurements, thus alleviating the need for additional propagation
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GSM POSITIONING ARCHITECTURES
infrastructure costs, coverage, the total number of users that can be supported and number
application will determine where the position information is required, the position update
rate for each object being tracked, the number of objects to be tracked, and the net value
Mobile-based Positioning
This is a form of self positioning. The Mobile Station (MS) uses the
signals from the BTSs to determine the position. There are a number of techniques that
could be used to calculate position, but the basis is likely to be TDOA. For an MS based
TDOA systems to work two fundamental changes need to be made to GSM equipment.
The first is to modify the MS so that it is able to make accurate TDOA measurements,
much more accurate than the current one bit resolution of OTDs. Such measurements
include algorithms to reject multi-path. Accordingly within the mobile there will be a
locus function which will accurately determine the TDOA. This can be done by
processing the burst information to locate the epoch of the training sequence. The
simplest logical channel on which to carry out this processing is the broadcast control
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channel (BCCH) because its bursts are not subject to frequency hopping or power control
There are two options. The first is to tightly synchronize the network. This can be
achieved by placing GPS time transfer receivers at each base station. The alternative is to
provide information to the MS about the synchronicity of the network. This could be
provided by special purpose monitoring receivers which measure the timing offset
between different BTSs and sent this timing data to MS via a traditional data link such as
accuracy and good coverage, it will be necessary to integrate many other sources of
fusion function which will fuse the information from a variety of sources. A key source
of information is the location of the base stations. Other possible sources of information,
which can be used to increase accuracy and to resolve ambiguities, include TAs, signal
strength indications, and sector information. On many occasions, the position information
calculated in the mobile will be needed at another location. This position information
could be sent from the mobile to another location using SMS. This would constitute
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Figure 5 mobile based positioning architecture
Network-based Positioning
from mobiles in the area and to be able to make accurate TOA measurements of the
signals from the MSs. A locus function is to be needed to reside in each positioning
receiver. The locus function will process the bursts emanating from the uplink from
the different TOAs and produce position estimate. The fusion function will reside in
LSC. The LSC will also contain the BTS database. It will receive requests for position
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measurement from various application computers; schedule the appropriate positioning
receivers to make the required locus measurement of the nominated MS, collect the locus
measurement from the positioning receivers, fuse all information into a position
measurement, and then return the position measurement to the requested application. The
LSC is likely to sit at the same level of the GSM hierarchy as the MSC.
elements in a BTS. For certain BTS configurations, the positioning receiver could tap
into the down converted video stream generated within the BTS and thus not have to
duplicate subsystems such as antenna system, power supply, amplifiers, down converter,
and digitizer. If the LSC is collocated with the MSC, signaling between LSC and the
positioning receiver could be achieved using the existing communication link between
unambiguously mark the TOA of a given TCH burst on a given frequency channel. In an
positioning receiver to mark the epoch at which a nominated burst arrives. Alternatively
the positioning receiver collocated with a BTS could measure the TOA relative to their
own transmission cycle, and separate monitoring sites would provide the LSC with
timing offset of each BTS, thus allowing TDOAs and subsequently position to be
calculated.
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Figure 6 network based positioning architecture
without modification of the mobile phones. The other advantage is the leverage that can
be gained from a single positioning measurement. The network operator could use the
information for position based tariffs and provide the mobile user with a variety of
Hybrid Positioning
self-positioning. Possible hybrid architecture has the locus function residing in the mobile
but the fusion function situated at the LSC. When requested by the LSC, a given mobile
will measure TOA of bursts from various BTSs. These are then sent to the LSC, which
generates TDOA measurements and compute position estimate for that mobile.
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As with mobile based positioning, some form of synchronization is
suitable for use in hybrid architecture. A variant of hybrid architecture is Digital Cursor
system. Instead of transmitting the locus information, this system transmits a replica of
the signal, with the TDOA calculated using cross-correlation of the different replicas.
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SUMMARY
Many people will agree that mobile location services are an important new
category of value-added service for the 21st century. The applications and services
explained in the introduction are of interest to customers and will help to differentiate
network operators initially before becoming an expected part of service within 10 years.
both broad and deep, the deployment of location-based services will not begin with the
operators will use today's technology to differentiate their services, as well as gain market
location specific products prepares them to be able to efficiently augment their offerings
for when more sophisticated positioning technology and wireless devices enter the
market.
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REFERENCES
1. http://www.mobilepositioning.com
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