GSM-Based Positioning Technique Using Relative Received Signal Strength

Context-aware applications have been gaining huge interest in the last few years. With cell phones becoming ubiquitous computing devices, cell phone localization has become an important research problem. Database Correlation Method DCM is a positioning technology that based on a database of a premeasured location dependent variable such as Received Signal Strength RSS. DCM has shown superior in terms of accuracy. Absolute RSS values received from a base station change with time, but the relative RSS RRSS values which refer to the relations of the RSS values between different base stations are more stable. This study proposes and implements a robust RRSS GSM-based technique for both positioning and traffic estimation. The study was tested and analyzed in Egypt roads using realistic data and Android smart phones. The performance evaluation showed good results. Mean positioning accuracy was about 29m in urban areas and velocity estimation was about 1 km/h in rural areas.