Highly accurate millimeter-wave positioning in real environments

In this project, we investigate highly accurate positioning in real environments using radio signals in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) band, i.e. the higher frequency bands for 5G. One important reason to open up mmWave frequencies for 5G worldwide in the band 26-30 GHz (exact frequency depends on geographical location) is the availability of bandwidth. Large bandwidth means that high data rates can be supported, but it also means that there is an inherent capability to get good delay resolution, which directly enables accurate time of arrival (TOA) or time difference of arrival (TDOA) based positioning and localization. The use of mmWave frequencies in cellular systems also means that adaptive and directive array antennas have to be used both at the base station (BS) as well as the user equipment (UE) sides in order to overcome the high path loss caused by the high frequencies. While this limits the range to 100-200 m in many practical scenarios, it also means that some kind of angular information is available and that beamforming is used to actively direct the signal to important scatterers, or groups of scatterers, in the environment.

In short, we can say that the mmWave band offers many attractive properties from a positioning point of view; the large channel bandwidths, use of adaptive antenna arrays and availability of directional information mean that it should be possible to achieve centimeter and decimeter level accuracy in the upcoming mmWave wireless systems. However, so far, most of the positioning work in the mmWave band is based on theoretical assumptions and simplified models, and very few researchers, if any, have targeted highly accurate mmWave positioning in real and dynamic environments. In this project we will do this; based on a world unique measurement capabilities, we will develop methodologies for highly accurate and robust mmWave radio based positioning in real and dynamic environments.