Robust Localization by Massive MIMO

About

Robust high-accuracy localization of radio terminals/users is a key enabler in 5G and future beyond-5G wireless network deployments to support (i) location-aware mobility applications and (ii) interference-avoiding directional communications for efficient spectrum sharing. In wide-open areas, such as rural environments, effective and efficient localization is manageable. In time-varying multipath-propagation mobility environments, such as dense urban areas, indoors, or underwater for example, high-precision localization is currently under intense investigation both theoretically and experimentally.

This project develops novel signal direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation methods for 3-D localization that are robust to occasional faulty measurements due to excessive noise, signal reflections, or sensor failures. The underline mathematical theory is novel L1-norm principal-component analysis of data. The project leverages the high-angular resolution of the 64-antenna-element massive MIMO base-station in Powder-RENEW (Salt Lake City, UT) to carry out live RF (2.5GHz) localization experiments and precisely and continuously estimate the location of two 2x2 antenna-element client nodes by the base station. The project builds experimental profiles in the Powder-RENEW library that are made publicly available to the research community for testing massive-MIMO positioning algorithms in a repeatable structured manner.