Entropy of Transmitter Maps in Cooperative Multipath Assisted Positioning

Abstract

In multipath assisted positioning, multipath components (MPCs) are regarded as line-of-sight (LoS) signals from virtual transmitters. The locations of physical and virtual transmitters are typically unknown, but can be estimated jointly with the location of a mobile terminal using simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). When users cooperate by exchanging maps of estimated positions of physical and virtual transmitters, the positioning performance can be improved drastically. Within this paper, we investigate such transmitter maps that are shared among users. We derive an approximation of the entropy of transmitter maps that is based on the unscented transform and analyze the evolution of this entropy over time. Our simulations indicate that the transmitter maps converge quickly.