MVP: magnetic vehicular positioning system for GNSS-denied environments

Abstract

Accurate positioning in global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-denied environments, such as tunnels and underpasses, remains a challenge. Navigation systems for such environments need to strike a balance between price and precision. In this paper, we propose magnetic vehicular positioning (MVP), a navigation system that guides drivers in GNSS-denied environments. The key idea of MVP is to extract magnetic fingerprints from geomagnetic field anomalies. By comparing the measured magnetic field against a magnetic map, positioning can be achieved without GNSS signals. Our proposed matching algorithm allows MVP to provide 5.14 m positioning accuracy. We conducted large-scale real-road experiments for 36 months in two countries and 56 tunnels to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system. Because MVP can be deployed on off-the-shelf smartphones, our approach makes accurate navigation in GNSS-denied environments affordable.