Vehicular Position Tracking Using LTE Signals

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology Vol. 66; no. 4; pp. 3376 - 3391
• Main Authors: Driusso, Marco, Marshall, Chris, Sabathy, Mischa, Knutti, Fabian, Mathis, Heinz, Babich, Fulvio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.04.2017; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antenna measurements; Clock bias and drift estimation; Clocks; Domains; Downlink; Driver behavior; Driving; ESPRIT; extended Kalman filter (EKF); Kalman filter (KF); Kalman filters; Long Term Evolution; Long-Term Evolution (LTE); OFDM; Position measurement; positioning; range measurements; Reference signals; Signal processing; time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation; Tracking systems; Transmitting antennas
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2016.2589463

This paper proposes and validates, in the field, an approach for position tracking that is based on Long-Term Evolution (LTE) downlink signal measurements. A setup for real data live gathering is used to collect LTE signals while driving a car in the town of Rapperswil, Switzerland. The collected data are then processed to extract the received LTE cell-specific reference signals (CRSs), which are exploited for estimating pseudoranges. More precisely, the pseudoranges are evaluated by using the "ESPRIT and Kalman Filter for Time-of-Arrival Tracking" (EKAT) algorithm and by taking advantage of signal combining in the time, frequency, spatial, and cell ID domains. Finally, the pseudoranges are corrected for base station's clock bias and drift, which are previously estimated, and are used in a positioning filter. The obtained results demonstrate the feasibility of a position tracking system based on the reception of LTE downlink signals.