UAV Assisted Ground User Localization

Abstract

The use of aerial platforms, also called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as flying BSs has risen dramatically in recent years owing to their various benefits and practical applications. The UAVs can provide high reliable wireless communications for ground devices as well as enhance the capacity and the coverage of wireless networks by effectively complementing the conventional terrestrial communication infrastructures. These vehicles, with their adaptive altitude, can enable LoS transmission links for ground devices more probably. Due to their agility and mobility, they can be quickly and efficiently deployed to handle communication and localization needs in several unexpected and temporary scenarios including the natural disaster, traffic congestions, stadiums and concerts. More importantly, the UAVs, through their mentioned abilities, can increase the number of observation points, without the requirement for additional hardware, and hence can achieve localization with a small number of devices. Remarkably, albeit the exciting great potential of UAV based localization, little work has been reported in the available literature. In line with this, in this work, we study a line-of-sight (LoS)/non-LoS (NLoS) mixed signal power model based localization solution relying on least square algorithm for aerial networks. The probabilistic propagation model and its localization performance are investigated through simulations.