Network experimentation for cooperative localization

Cooperation is an emerging paradigm for improving the performance and extending the coverage of wireless communication and location-aware networks. Cluttered environments represent a major challenge in achieving ubiquitous communication and location-awareness. To characterize cooperative network localization in realistic environments, it is important to develop experimental methodologies that are applicable for a variety of cooperative settings. In this paper we present the design of a network experiment particularly suited for evaluating cooperative techniques using a common set of measurements. This enables (i) derivation of ranging models, (ii) characterization of localization algorithms, (iii) quantification of cooperation benefit, (iv) development of techniques for harnessing environmental knowledge such as non-line-of-sight detection jointly with cooperation. As a case study, we consider ultrawide bandwidth cooperative locationaware networks in cluttered indoor environments and evaluate their performance using experimental data.