Wireless Sensor Network with Geolocation

Maintaining situational/positional awareness in indoor and urban environments is difficult because buildings, walls, and other obstacles obstruct vision and RF propagation. Propagation channels are typically characterized by direct line-of-sight (DLOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) performance. As more obstruction is added to the propagation channel, the DLOS path amplitude decreases relative to the NLOS path due to multipath and shadow fading. Thus, the DLOS path, which is the key enabling parameter for geolocation, is harder to detect. The challenge is to develop geolocation algorithms that overcome the DLOS obstructions, and integrate the algorithms into a communication network that is easily deployed, low cost, and provides accurate and reliable location information.