EVOLUTION AND PERSPECTIVES OF 5G CELLULAR LOCALIZATION

Kurzfassung

In recent years we have seen an explosion of location based services. These services mostly rely on an accuracy performance that was “envisioned” two decades ago when the FCC demanded from the network operators such a performance to determine the whereabouts of 911 callers. Neither dedicated position systems, such as GPS, nor the cellular systems could deliver the potential performance in indoor or urban canyons, and therefore, led to an evolution of existing networks (GSM – UMTS – LTE) to provide network based localization. Further, in communication networks geo-location information is identified as a useful input that e.g. represents past and current channel state information and conditions (short- and long-term statistics) and network constellations. Current information jointly with mobility information leads to short-term predictions that have an impact on the different communication layers such as PHY, MAC or network management. Challenging applications of today and in the future demand a much more precise accuracy in the cm-range. We will survey the cellular network evolution of localization and outline potential lessons to be learned for future cellular generations, as well as a timely status of cellular localization within the 5G standard.