Improved Location Awareness for the Internet of Things

#News(IoTStack) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

In expectation of a strain on the ability of fifth generation (5G) networks to keep track of a rapidly growing number of mobile devices, Tufts University researchers have developed an improved algorithm for localizing and tracking these products. The scalable solution distributes the task among the devices themselves and could meet the demands of a projected 50 billion connected products in the internet of things by 2020.

Positioning of wireless devices is currently centralized and dependent on “anchors” with known locations such as cell towers or GPS satellites to communicate directly with each device. An increase in the number of devices will necessitate installation of anchors at higher density, suggesting that centralized positioning can become unwieldy as the number of items to track grows.
needing direct access to anchors. Sensing and calculations are done locally on the device, so there is no need for a central coordinator to collect and process the data.
The self-localization algorithm developed by Khan and his colleagues makes use of device-to-device communication, and so can take place indoors (e.g., in offices and manufacturing facilities), underground, underwater or under thick cloud cover. This is an advantage over GPS systems, which not only can go dark under those conditions, but also adds to the cost and power requirements of the device.

The new method of distributed localization in a 5G network has the devices locate themselves without all

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