EUROCON 2007 The International Conference on Computer as a Tool

Warsaw, September 9-12

Bad Geometry Influence on Positioning Accuracy in Wireless Networks

Krzysztof Bronk*, Jacek Stefanski, Member, IEEE *National Institute of Telecommunications, Gdansk, Poland, K.Bronk@itl.waw.pl Gdansk University of Technology and National Institute of Telecommunications, Gdansk, Poland, jstef@eti.pg.gda.pl
AbstractThe aim of this paper is to discuss a connection between the geometric configuration and positioning accuracy in wireless networks exploiting the TDOA technique. At the beginning, a simulation model of TDOA localization technique is described. We use the Taylor series expansion and least square fit method to estimate the terminals position. In this part we also derive a statistical model for calculating the geometric dilution of precision (GDOP), which is here a variable reflecting geometric quality with respect to the hyperbolic lateration. The two dimensional root mean square (RMS) error metric is also presented in order to make necessary accuracy calculations. We then describe an impact of the bad configuration of measurement units on the positioning accuracy. Basing on simulation results, the TDOA efficiency for different time errors and geometric circumstances is presented. Finally, we show an empirical solution for decreasing the bad geometry effect. The accuracy is improved thanks to the additional measurement units placed in the good geometry conditions. Keywordspositioning accuracy, bad geometry effect, GDOP, TDOA.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The time difference of arrival is probably the most popular positioning technique nowadays. It is considered as a very accurate and universal method in estimating targets location. It is specified for e.g. cellular systems such as GSM or UMTS. The TDOA technique [2, 3] is based on the hyperbolic lateration and exploits ranges differences to provide an estimation of terminals coordinates. A hyperbola can be defined as a set of all points, for which the difference in the range to two fixed points is constant. These fixed points can be called measurement units in a case of positioning. At this point targets position can be limited to the hyperbola defined by (1)
dij ( x, y ) = ri ( x, y ) rj ( x, y ) = =

former one can be derived. System of equations such as (1) can be created, where each one denotes the ranges difference with regard to a particular pair of the measurement units. If an unambiguous solution can be found, then the true terminals position can be derived. It is common, however, that an ambiguity exists due to some factors inflecting time measurements. The most disadvantageous effects are: 1) clocks errors, 2) ionospheric and tropospheric refraction, 3) non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation, 4) diffraction, 5) reflections, 6) noise. Due to above reasons, system of equations does not have an unique solution, hence some numerical algorithms have to be used, to determine the targets position. For the purpose of this article an iterative process is exploited in order to simplify coordinates. We transform the nonlinear system of equations to the linear one and then the least square fit algorithm [1] is applied. Many studies have been done about the TDOA positioning and an influence of the time measurement errors on accuracy. That is why our research embraced also the bad geometry and its impact on the localization efficiency. This article, therefore, shows an influence of the geometric configuration and time errors on the positioning efficiency. Generally, bad geometry occurs when measurement units are placed along a line or very close to each other. As a consequence radio paths arrive at terminals location at very shallow angles, therefore an error of the position estimation increases. II. SIMULATION MODEL

( X i x ) + (Yi y )
2

(X

j x ) + (Y j y ) , 2 2

(1)

where ri and rj are distances from the target to an ith and jth measurement unit respectively, dij is the difference between these ranges, (Xi,j, Yi,j), and (x, y) are measurement units and targets coordinates respectively. If the range difference is also calculated for the other pair of measurement units, the second hyperbola can be obtained and an intersection with the

A. Position estimation A major problem is to solve the nonlinear system of equations. So a first step a linearization is done. It can be achieved thanks to the Taylor series expansion, as in [1]. This approach will enable to use the iterative process and the solution will be approximated after defined number of steps. Generally, the Taylor series is exploited to describe a function in a certain interval by a polynomial. Let I

1-4244-0813-X/07/$20.00 2007 IEEE.

1131

denotes this interval, v represents an inner point of I, and f represents the differentiable function in this range with derivatives up to the order of (n+1). For x being a point of the interval I, the function f can be expressed as in
f ( x) =
i =0 n

b = Ax,

(9)

where
d11 a1 d a b = 12 , A = 2 d1n an b1 b2 x ,x = . y bn

(i )

(v)

i!

( x v)

+ Rn ( x, v ),

(2)

(10)

where Rn(x,v) represents a rest after n+1 terms. According to the above statement, the linearization process can be carried out as follows. At the beginning, it is important to choose a suitable initial estimation of the targets position, which is denoted as ( x, y ) . For the purpose of this article, it is achieved by an arithmetic average of the measurement units positions. A goal is now to obtain a correction vector [ x,y ] , which will be calculated at the end of each iteration step and then will be added to the position estimation. After that, the next step can be done. Referring to (1), the difference between ranges to the first and jth measurement unit expressed by Taylor series, is done as
d1 j ( x, y ) = d1 j ( x + x, y + y ) .

The matrix A which is called design matrix, is composed of the partial differentials calculated in (5). It contains coefficients of the system of equations. The vector b consists of the pseudoranges deviations mentioned before. Finally, x is the demanded correction vector. If the system of equations has an unique solution, it can be computed as follows
x = A 1b.

(11)

(3)

Only first order expansion is necessary in order to derive the terminals location, what is shown in (4)
d1 j ( x + x, y + y ) = d1 j ( x, y ) + d1 j x x + d1 j y y. (4)

In the real conditions, however, the system of equations is overdetermined, there are more equations than unknowns. Moreover, calculations are based on estimates and unsure measurements, hence the solution does not exist. In order to obtain an approximation of it ~ = [~, ~, ~ ]T , the least square fit algorithm is x x y z implemented. In the first step the squared Euclidean distance of the vector r = b A~ has to be computed, x which is done as follows
r 2 = r Tr = ( b Ax )
2 T T T T

( b Ax ) =
T T

The partial differentials are calculated as follows

d1 j d1 j y X1 + x X j + x = = aj r1 rj x = Y1 + y Y j + y = bj , r1 rj

(12)

= b b 2x A b + x A Ax.

(5)

The major principle of the least square fit algorithm is to minimalize the squared Euclidean distance of the residual vector r as in
min b Ax 2 .
2

(13)

where
ri =

( X i x ) + (Yi y )
2

(6)

It is achieved by calculating the derivative of (12) and equate it with zero as follows
2A Tb + 2A T Ax = 0.

(14)

Due to the measurement units coordinates and the targets position estimation are known values, coefficients aj and bj are also known, therefore (4) can be rewritten as in

The transformation of this expression leads us to the determined system of linear equations, for which the unique solution exists:
x = ( A T A ) A Tb.
1

d1 j ( x + x, y + y ) = d1 j ( x, y ) + a j x + b j y,
where
d1 j ( x, y )

(7)

(15)

expresses

difference

between

pseudoranges from the position estimation to the first measurement unit and from the position estimation to the jth measurement unit, hence its numerical value is also known. Let d1 j denotes a difference between this pseudoranges difference and a measured one. Then, for n measurement units with i = 1,, n, we get a system of n linear equations as follows
d1 j = a j x + b j y.

At this point the approximation of the correction vector x is derived. It now can be added to the position estimation and the next step of iteration can be started. The whole iterative process ends, when values of the correction vector are smaller than a threshold defined before. B. Accuracy and GDOP calculating The most commonly used measure of the positioning accuracy is the root mean square error metric, as shown in [2] and [3]. For a one dimensional case its value can be calculated as in

(8)

This notation can be converted into matrix notation as in

1132

RMS x =

( x x )
i =1 i t

(16)

where xt denotes the true targets coordinate, xi its estimation, and n represents a number of measurements. For the purpose of this article, however, the two dimensional metric is exploited instead. It can be easily derived by calculating the one dimensional metric for both coordinates, and than final value can be computed:
2 RMS xy = RMS x2 + RMS y .

with respect to the number of the measurement units. If there is K of them, we need k = K - 1 measurements to obtain the location estimation. Parameter dij is the jth measured pseudoranges difference for the ith position estimation, d j is the jth mean pseudoranges difference with respect to the jth pair of the measurement units and n represents the number of the position estimations. GDOP can be applied as a criterion for choosing the right geometric configuration of the measurement units. The lower value of this parameter is measured, the better geometric conditions we have. The GDOP value is usually higher than one, however it can be lower, when more than needed measurement units are used. In order to achieve the qualitative comparison of the GDOP values and the evaluation of the different geometric configurations a quality scale is needed. It exists for GPS purpose and is presented in Table I.
TABLE I. GDOP QUALITY SCALE.

(17)

Such a measure is very useful due to a possibility of representing it on a plane as a circle, whose center is the true targets position and a radius length is RMSxy value. Within such a circle there are about 63% targets position estimations. Basing on the two dimensional root mean square error metric, another circle can be created. Its radius length is two times longer than the previous ones. Within this circle there are about 98% targets position estimations. We want to show the influence of the bad geometry on the positioning accuracy. To do so, we need a metric, which describes a quality of the measurement units geometric configuration. Such a metric exists and it is called geometric dilution of precision [4], [5]. This parameter is commonly used in GPS system in order to verify if geometric configuration of satellites is correct. It is noteworthy that in this case the TOA instead of TDOA technique is implemented. Moreover, in GPS vertical position and terminals clock error are estimated as well. We have come up with a conclusion, however, that definition of GDOP can be modified and after that, this parameter can be used in our simulations in order to express the quality of the geometric configuration of the measurement units. GDOP is defined here as a quotient of the RMS error of the position estimation and the RMS error of the measured pseudoranges difference. These RMS errors are calculated with respect to the mean position estimation, and not the real position of the terminal. Therefore, these RMS errors are here the same as the standard deviations. Consequently, the parameter GDOP can be derived as in
GDOP =
2 x2 + y

Quality of Positioning Very Good Good Fair Suspect

GDOP Value 1-3 4-5 6 >6

It is noteworthy that the above mentioned scale is subjective and was created for GPS, however its usefulness for TDOA positioning was verified by our research. III. SIMULATION RESULTS A. Positioning in bad geometry conditions In this part of the article we want to show a source and an influence of the bad geometry on positioning accuracy. In order to achieve it, we need to provide various geometric conditions. It is done by the different measurement units locations. At first, all the measurement units and also the terminal are placed on a line. Such a configuration assures the worst possible geometry, which can be improved by moving one of the measurement units away from the line. This movement is done by steps and on a line perpendicular to the previous one. A distance between the former line and the mentioned measurement unit is the distance to bad geometry. The impact of changing this parameter on positioning accuracy and the GDOP value is shown in Figure 1. It is easy to note that the geometric conditions get worse while the measurement units and terminals configuration approaches the linear one. Figure 1 verifies also the usefulness of the modified GDOP parameter for TDOA positioning. Moreover, when the geometric configuration is suspect (GDOP>6), the error metric exceeds one hundred meters and positioning is not efficient any more. At this point we can assume that the time errors are very small and the major source of the inaccuracy is the bad geometry.

(18)

where x and y are the standard deviations of the estimation of the coordinate x and y respectively and d is the standard deviation of the measured pseudoranges difference, and it can be expressed as

d =

(d
i =1 j =1

ij

d j )2 ,

k n

(19)

where k is the number of the measured pseudoranges differences, which are done to estimate targets position

1133

500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 0

GDOP

200 400 600 800 100 120 140 160 180 200 0 0 0 0 0 0

Distance to bad geometry (m)

Fig. 1. The two dimensional root mean square error metric and the geometric dilution of precision as functions of the distance to bad geometry.

We also show, how the bad geometry influences the positioning accuracy whereas the different time error conditions occur. It is presented in Figure 2. It is noteworthy that the time errors are here uniformly distributed and independent for each measurement unit. These random variables have their maximal values defined as presented in Figure 2. Simulations show that greater time errors cause higher increase of the inaccuracy in the bad geometry conditions. This conclusion leads to a practical application. It is necessary to assure as good time synchronization between measurement units as possible. It is important since the inaccurate clocks cause that geometric configuration has bigger influence on the positioning accuracy.
1000 900 800

GDOP

RMSxy

30 27 24 21 18 15 12 9 6 3 0

containing the true terminals location. Such a situation leads to two example solutions of this problem.

RMSxy (m)

Fig. 3. The visualization of the bad geometry effect.

0,5 s 0,3 s 0,1 s 0,05 s

RMSxy (m)

700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 3 6 9 12

B. Reducing the bad geometry effect In order to eliminate the bad geometry a hybrid positioning technique can be used. It can be TDOA related with angle of arrival (AOA). This approach allows to exploit another line, which determines a direction from one of the measurement units to the terminal. An intersection of this line with the one that is obtained thanks to the TDOA positioning in the bad geometry conditions derives a very accurate targets position. Despite the AOA technique is used only in one measurement unit, its implementation is still difficult and expensive. The other approach, for which simulation results are presented in Figure 4, exploits another measurement unit (or units) in order to enhance the geometric quality.
150 135 120

15

18

21

24

27

30

GDOP

RMS (m)

105 90 75 60 45 30 15 0 3 4

Fig. 2. The two dimensional root mean square error metric as a function of the geometric dilution of precision for the different time error conditions.

GDOP

Figure 3 presents an example visualization of the simulation results. It shows how the estimates of the terminals position are placed around its true location. This figure also presents the visualization of the root mean square error metric and the bad geometric configuration of the measurement units. The most important, however, is here a distribution of the position estimations. It is easy to note that the inaccuracy, which occurs mainly due to the bad geometry, affects only one direction. In general, it is common that the bad geometry configuration can still limits the possible location of the target to a line

The number of measurement units

Fig. 4. Reducing the bad geometry effect by exploiting the additional measurement units being in the good geometric conditions.

It is necessary to add that the results shown above are obtained when fourth and fifth measurement unit is placed in the good geometric conditions in contrast with

1134

GDOP

RMSxy

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

the first three units, which are in the bad geometric configuration. The simulations clearly demonstrate how huge improvement of the accuracy is achieved thanks to the additional measurement units. The results also show that it is enough to use only one more unit being in the good geometric conditions in order to obtain the huge decrease of the positioning error. It is obvious that the reason of such a situation is a reduction of the bad geometry effect represented by the GDOP parameter. IV. CONCLUSION Our research showed that the bad geometry effect is a serious problem affecting the positioning accuracy badly. The situation is even worse when the time measurement errors increase. We used here the modified GDOP parameter and the two dimensional error metric to present these problems. Finally, we proposed the two different solutions which can improve the assessment of the targets position. We made simulations in order to prove that the additional measurement units can make the positioning accuracy better. The results show that the bad geometry problem can be eliminated in this way, however it is common that there are no more measurement units available. In such a situation we need to find another method to prevent the bad geometry effects. The possible solution was mentioned in this article and it requires the hybrid positioning technique to be exploited. That is the reason why our research will continue. We are going to carry out further simulations to assess the usefulness of this approach. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] A. Kpper, Location-Based Services: Fundamentals and Operation, John Wiley & Sons, 2005. M. Aatique, Evaluation of TDOA Techniques for Position Location in CDMA Systems, Blacksburg 1997. G. Mizusawa, Performance of Hyperbolic Position Location Techniques for Code Division Multiple Access, Blacksburg 1996. R. Langley, Dilution of Precision, GPS World, May 1999. R. Yarlagadda, GPS GDOP Metric, IEE Proc.-Radar, Sonar Navig., Vol. 147, No. 5, October 2000.

1135