Accurate indoor positioning is required for a variety of commercial applications, including warehouse automation, asset tracking, emergency first-responders, and others. In fact, the general expectation of users today is for "GPS-like" positioning performance anywhere they go. The inherent limitations of GPS signal availability indoors and in satelliteoccluded environments, however, has forced researchers to investigate alternative technologies which may be able to replicate GPS/GNSS performance indoors. A new terrestrial RFbased distance measurement technology, trademarked "Locata", has overcome the technical challenges required to create "a localised autonomous terrestrial replica of GNSS". Signals from the Locata network are seen by receiver devices as equivalent to (but totally independent from) the GNSS satellite constellation(s). This technical paper describes indoor positioning results with the latest generation of Locata positioning devices. The results demonstrate that Locata's technology enables cm-level positioning in severe multipath environments where conventional high-accuracy radiopositioning has previously been impossible.Index Terms-Indoor positioning system, Locata
Today, GPS is the most popular and widely used three-dimensional positioning technology in the world. However, in many everyday environments such as indoors or in urban areas, GPS signals are not available for positioning (due to the very weak signals). Even with high sensitivity GPS receivers, positioning for urban and indoor environments cannot be guaranteed in all situations, and accuracies are typically of the order of tens to hundreds of meters at best. Other emerging technologies obtain positions from systems that are not designed for positioning, such as mobile phones or television. As a result, the accuracy, reliability and simplicity of the position solution is typically very poor in comparison to GPS with a clear view of the sky. Locata is a new positioning technology, developed to address the failure of current technologies for reliable ubiquitous (outdoor and indoor) positioning. In this paper key aspects of the new technology are discussed, with particular emphasis on the positioning network (LocataNet). An innovative characteristic of the LocataNet is its ability to propagate (autonomously) into difficult environments and over wide areas. Through an experimental LocataNet installation, a key mechanism for achieving this is tested, and real-time stand-alone positioning (without a base station and additional data link) with sub-centimeter precision is demonstrated.
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