Ad-Coop Positioning System (ACPS): positioning for cooperative users in hybrid cellular ad-hoc networks

In this paper, we propose an innovative solution for positioning determination in 4G wireless networks by introducing the Ad-Coop Positioning System (ACPS). The ACPS is supported by a hybrid cellular ad-hoc architecture, where the cellular network has a centralized control over the ad-hoc connections among pairs of mobiles. Specifically, peer-to-peer (P2P) communications are exploited in a mesh fashion within cellular-established clusters for cooperation-aided localization purposes (from that, the word ad-coop is derived). The major contribution of this work is the design of the data fusion method for the ACPS, which appropriately combines and weights the long- and short-range location information in a non-linear least square (NLLS) minimization procedure. The numerical results shown in the paper demonstrate that the ACPS enhances the location estimation accuracy with respect to conventional hybrid positioning techniques in cellular networks.