Mobile Positioning Solutions for GSM

Dirk Nikolai
Alcatel R&I Stuttgart

January 11th, 2002

Definition of mobile Location Services

(LCS)

Network-based services that

integrate a derived estimate of
a mobile device's location or position
with other information
so as to provide added value to the user.

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 2

Family of Location Services

Range of applications
Network
related

Information

Assistance Asset tracking

Entertainment, news, weather,

Personal or vehicle emergency,
traffic & navigation, roadside assistance,
advertising, find your friend
alarm management

Wireless remote
management & control

Network
management,

billing,
customer care.

B: Business
C:
Consumer
M: Machine
P: Person

Dirk Nikolai

B2B

Fleet &
freight
tracking

M2M & P2P

Alcatel
Stuttgart

B2C

Pushed info.
Discount,
ad, special
event

M2P

C2B

C2C

Pulled info.
Find Gas station,
restaurant,

Pulled info.
Find friend,
pets

P2M

P2P

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Seite 3

Expected Revenues:
An emerging, but uncertain Market!
Localised Services

Strategis Group

Billing

~$Bio 15.9

Information

~$Bio 13.5

Roadside assistance

~$Bio 1.7

Traffic & navigation

~$Bio 1.6

Ovum

~$Bio 1.9

M-Commerce

~$Bio 1.1

Advertising

~$Bio 2.1

2005 EU operator
revenues
Y00-Y05 cumulated
revenues

~$Bio 32.7

~$Bio 5

~$Bio 81.9

~$Bio 11

Discrepancies : Service definition, penetration rate, number of

requests, various sources of revenues
Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 4

Positioning technologies
Cell based methods

Cell-Identifier (CI) based, refined by Timing Advance (TA)

Enhancement: usage of received signal levels (RXLEV in

NMR) - refine and add reliability to position
1

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

3
LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

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Positioning Technologies
Trilateration: time differences in network

In existing GSM networks BTSs are not synchronized (RTD 0)

Position calculation via hyperbolic trilateration between BTS pairs

RTD

GTD = OTD
RTD
RTD : Real Time Difference
OTD : Observed Time Difference
GTD : Geometric Time Difference

= OTD

GTD = 0
Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 6

Positioning Technologies
Trilateration

Measurement of Observed Time Difference between 3 BTS

TA circle

Two types of Location

Measurement Units (LMU) are
foreseen in the standard

Base Station

Base Station

Type A, stand-alone

Type B, integrated in the BTS

LMU can be avoided by

synchronizing BTSs with GPS or
by time-stamping DL emissions

E-OTD/OTDOA Base Station

hyperbolas
Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 7

Positioning technologies:
Assisted GNSS

Integration of GNSS (GPS) receiver in the handset

Assistance data sent through RAN: ephemeris, clock

information, differential corrections

Enhance accuracy, integrity, time-to-first-fix, increase battery

life...

GSM
Assistance Data

Network

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

Reference
Receiver

GNSS Ground
Station

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Seite 8

Positioning technologies:
Technologies comparison

Complexity /
Investment
High

Assisted GNSS
E-OTD
OTDOA

Network costly
HW impact;
new SW in
handset

Handset HW
costly
modification;
Indoor
coverage
problem

CELL-ID + TA + NMR
Low
High

Low

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

Accuracy

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 9

Network Based Positioning Methods

Network Based Positioning:

allows to locate legacy handsets (100% penetration)

supplementary solution to GNSS positioning

Candidates for Cell-Identity-based Positioning (CI, CI++):

Dirk Nikolai

Cell-ID only (geographical coordinates of serving cell) CI

Cell-ID and Timing Advance CI+TA

Cell-ID, Timing Advance and received signals level (RXLEV)

CI+TA+NMR (network measurement report)

Distance Calculation Method (DCM)

Field Strength Mapping (FSM)

Advanced Calculation Methods (ACM)

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 10

Positioning Method CI+TA

Cell-Identity and Timing Advance

TA gives a distance estimate between the BTS and the MS

straight TA-distance = (TA-value + ) dTA

dTA = 3.69s symbol period 3e8 m/s = 554m

Easy to implement:

Dirk Nikolai

Omnidirectional cells: estimated position = BTS position

Sectored cells: estimated position = intersection of antenna

azimuth and TA-distance

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 11

Positioning Method CI+TA+NMR

Distance Calculation Method (DCM)
Cell-Identity, Timing Advance and Measurement Report
(NMR)

NMR contains measured RX levels from serving cell and

neighbouring cell(s)

Modelling of propagation loss:

Hatas Formula L = A + B log10(d/km)

L: decibel path loss

A: offset loss

B: distance exponential

Calculate distance d to BTSs based on measured path

loss L:
d/km = 10^((L A) / B)

Contours are circles (per BTS sector)

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 12

Distance Calculation Method (DCM)

Illustration of Position Calculation

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 13

Distance Calculation Method (DCM)

Data from Measurements
Comparison of Hatas path loss formula with field data

Dirk Nikolai

standard deviation in the range of 10~20

dB ! Alcatel
Stuttgart
11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 14

Positioning Method CI+TA+NMR

Field Strength Mapping (FSM)
Cell-Identity, Timing Advance and Measurement Report
(NMR)

Cellular area is splitted in pixels (e.g. 50m x 50m) for

which received levels of surrounding cells are predicted

Usage of Alcatels RNP A955 (radio network planning tool)

for field strength prediction: semi-empirical or ray-optical
modelling

Input for FSM algorithm: Power plots of all cells covering

the whole service area (multiple layers)

Comparing predicted levels and those observed by the MS,

the network can derive in which zone the MS is located

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 15

Field Strength Mapping (FSM)

RNP A955 for field strength prediction

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 16

Field Strength Mapping (FSM)

Best Pattern Matching: 3D Illustration
Search predicted pattern with mininum distance to
observed level pattern (sum of squared distances).

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 17

Description of Input Data

for Performance Evaluation

Input Data:

MS reference position: GPS coordinates

Standard GSM data: Cell-ID, TA, measurement report (RXLEVs)

BTS info: coordinates of serving cell and neighbouring cells (CI),

EIRPs, antenna azimuth, antenna pattern, ...

For FSM method: field strength prediction for each cell (RNP tool)

Different geographical areas under test, e.g.

Dirk Nikolai

Ruse (Bulgaria): suburban, 4.000 measurements

Piotrkow (Poland): rural area, 3.800 measurements

Lodz (Poland): rural area, 4.400 measurements

Alexandrow (Poland): suburban, 3.000 measurements

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 18

Input Data Lodz (Poland)

MS reference positions

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

rural area

sectored cells only

cell radius roughly

10 km ... 15 km

1 measurement/s

4.400
measurements
(~1h)

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 19

Accuracy of CI+TA
Example Lodz

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 20

Mean Accuracy of Positioning Algorithms

7458

5339

5000
4500
4000

3608

3500

3045

mean distance to 3000

real position [m] 2500

1913

2000
1500
1000
500
0

1344
1117

1259

1324

983
807

677

789

592
545

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 21

Summary

LCS is uncertain market

many business opportunities: next major revenue chance for telecomm

operators

services are slowly coming up and will evolve with customer usage

Positioning techniques vary widely in terms of cost and

accuracy

robust CI+TA+NMR-based solution with full market penetration

high variance of received power levels makes RXLEV-based positioning

difficult, accuracy depends on cell size

enhanced accuracy using GNSS technology (new handsets required)

positioning accuracy vs. cost adapted to anticipated customer needs

combination of various methods will provide best service availability and

accuracy

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 22

Supplementary Slides

Abbreviations

B2B

Business to Business

MS

B2C

Business to Consumer

NMR

Cell-ID

Cell Identity

Network Measurement
Report
RXLEV Received Power Level

DCM

Distance Calculation Method

SMLC

FSM

Field Strength Mapping

TA

Serving Mobile Location

Center
Timing Advance

GNSS

TOA

Time of Arrival

GPS

Global Navigation Satellite

System
Global Positioning System

TTFF

Time To First Fix

LCS

Location Services

M2M

Machine to Machine

M2P

Machine to Person

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

Mobile Station

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 24

Positioning technologies
Assisted GNSS: two variants

Radio
Measuremen
ts

Position
calculatio
n

X, Y

Measurements are always done in the handset

Position can be calculated...

in the handset (MS-based) or

in the SMLC (MS-assisted)

User privacy is a major concern

Position information property?

Allows for indoors GPS due to sensitivity enhancements

Dirk Nikolai

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 25

LCS network architecture

3GPP Standard

New elements

{LMU
Type A}

Node B
Uu

Iub

SRNC

LMU
type B

Iups

HLR

3G
SGSN
Iucs

Lg

3G

SMLC

Le

GMLC

Lg

MSC

Lh

External
LCS client

Lg
SMLC
MFS

2G

Gb

SGSN

Lb
BTS
LMU
type B

BSC
Ater

TC

2G
MSC

{LMU
Type A}

Dirk Nikolai

Lg

Alcatel
Stuttgart

11-jan-02

LCS_for_TUWIEN.ppt

Seite 26