Networking⁃GPS: Cooperative Vehicle Localization Using Commodity GPS in Urban Area

[Abstract] A challenging issue in intelligent transportation systems (ITS) is to accurately locate moving vehicles in urban area. Considerable efforts have been made to improve the localization accuracy of standalone GPS receivers. However, through empirical study, we found that the latitude and longitude values generated by GPS receivers fluctuate significantly because of the multipath effect in urban areas. The relative distances between neighboring vehicles with similar GPS signal data in terms of satellite sets and signal strength are much more stable in such a scenario. In this paper, we propose a cooperative localization algorithm, Networking⁃GPS, to improve the accuracy of location information for vehicular networks in urban area using commodity GPS receivers. First, atom redundantly rigid graphs of vehicles are constructed according to the similarity of neighboring GPS data. Then, through rigidity expansion, local accuracy can enforce global accuracy. Extensive simulations based on the real road network and trace data of vehicle mobility demonstrate that Networking⁃GPS can improve the accuracy of the entire system.

[Keywords] vehicular communication; cooperative localization; rigidity formation