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Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is a promising technological enabler for the 6th generation (6G) of wireless systems with applications in localization and communication. In this paper, we consider the problem of positioning a single-antenna user in 3D space based on the received signal from a single-antenna base station and reflected signal from an RIS by taking into account the mobility of the user and spatial-wideband (WB) effects. To do so, we first derive the spatial-WB channel model under the far-field assumption, for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing signal transmission with the user having a constant velocity. We derive the Cram\'er Rao bounds to serve as a benchmark. Furthermore, we devise a low-complexity estimator that attains the bounds in high signal-to-noise ratios. Our estimator neglects the spatial-WB effects and deals with the user mobility by estimating the radial velocities and compensating for their effects in an iterative fashion. We show that the spatial-WB effects can degrade the localization accuracy for large RIS sizes and large signal bandwidths as the direction of arrival or departure deviate from the RIS normal. In particular, for a 64 $\times$ 64 RIS, the proposed estimator is resilient against the spatial-WB effects up to 140 MHz bandwidth. Regarding user mobility, our results suggest that the velocity of the user influences neither the bounds nor the accuracy of our estimator. Specifically, we observe that the state of the user with a high speed (42 m/s) can be estimated virtually with the same accuracy as a static user.

The extra degrees of freedom resulting from the consideration of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) for smart signal propagation can be exploited for high accuracy localization and tracking. In this paper, capitalizing on a recent RIS hardware architecture incorporating a single receive Radio Frequency (RF) chain for measurement collection, we present a user localization method with multiple RISs. The proposed method includes an initial step for direction estimation at each RIS, followed by maximum likelihood position estimation, which is initialized with a least squares line intersection technique. Our numerical results showcase the accuracy of the proposed localization, verifying our theoretical estimation analysis., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to appear in IEEE WCL

Recently, millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G localization has been shown to be to provide centimeter-level accuracy, lending itself to many location-aware applications, e.g., connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs). One assumption usually made in the investigation of localization methods is that the user equipment (UE), i.e., a CAV, and the base station (BS) are {time} synchronized. In this paper, we remove this assumption and investigate two two-way localization protocols: (i) a round-trip localization protocol (RLP), whereby the BS and UE exchange signals in two rounds of transmission and then localization is achieved using the signal received in the second round; (ii) a collaborative localization protocol (CLP), whereby localization is achieved using the signals received in the two rounds. We derive the position and orientation error bounds applying beamforming at both ends and compare them to the traditional one-way localization. Our results show that mmWave localization is mainly limited by the angular rather than the temporal estimation and that CLP significantly outperforms RLP. Our simulations also show that it is more beneficial to have more antennas at the BS than at the UE., This version is accepted for publication as a paper in the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology

Location-aware communication systems are expected to play a pivotal part in the next generation of mobile communication networks. Therefore, there is a need to understand the localization limits in these networks, particularly, using millimeter-wave technology (mm-wave). Towards that, we address the uplink and downlink localization limits in terms of 3D position and orientation error bounds for mm-wave multipath channels. We also carry out a detailed analysis of the dependence of the bounds on different system parameters. Our key findings indicate that the uplink and downlink behave differently in two distinct ways. First of all, the error bounds have different scaling factors with respect to the number of antennas in the uplink and downlink. Secondly, uplink localization is sensitive to the orientation angle of the user equipment (UE), whereas downlink is not. Moreover, in the considered outdoor scenarios, the non-line-of-sight paths generally improve localization when a line-of-sight path exists. Finally, our numerical results show that mm-wave systems are capable of localizing a UE with sub-meter position error, and sub-degree orientation error.

In the past, NLOS propagation was proven to be a source of distortion for radio-based positioning systems due to the lack of temporal and spatial resolution of previous cellular systems. Hence, every NLOS component was perceived as a perturbation for localization. Even though 5G is not yet standardized, a strong proposal, which has the potential to overcome the problem of limited temporal and spatial resolution, is the massive MIMO millimeter wave technology. We reconsider the role of NLOS components for position and orientation estimation in 5G millimeter wave MIMO systems. Our analysis is based on the concept of Fisher information. We show that for sufficiently high temporal and spatial resolution, NLOS components always provide position and orientation information that consequently increase position and orientation estimation accuracy. In addition, we show that the information gain of NLOS components depends on the actual location of the reflector or scatter. Our numerical examples suggest that the NLOS components are most informative about the position and orientation of a mobile terminal when the corresponding reflectors or scatterers are illuminated with narrow beams.

An efficient and accurate method to evaluate the fundamental error bounds for wireless sensor localization is proposed. While there already exist efficient tools like Cram`er- Rao lower bound (CRLB) and position error bound (PEB) to estimate error limits, in their standard formulation they all need an accurate knowledge of the statistic of the ranging error. This requirement, under Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) environments, is impossible to be met a priori. Therefore, it is shown that collecting a small number of samples from each link and applying them to a non-parametric estimator, like the gaussian kernel (GK), could lead to a quite accurate reconstruction of the error distribution. A proposed Edgeworth Expansion method is employed to reconstruct the error statistic in a much more efficient way with respect to the GK. It is shown that with this method, it is possible to get fundamental error bounds almost as accurate as the theoretical case, i.e. when a priori knowledge of the error distribution is available. Therein, a technique to determine fundamental error limits–CRLB and PEB–onsite without knowledge of the statistics of the ranging errors is proposed.

Nowadays, passive and semi-passive wireless devices are increasing their appeal, particularly in the new scenario of the Internet of Things, thanks to their low complexity and low energy consumption. In this context, radio-frequency identification (RFID) and radar sensor networks (RSNs) are rising interest when the localization of (semi-)passive tags (without active transmitters) and moving passive objects is required. In this paper, we propose a novel network architecture capable of jointly localizing (semi-)passive tags and moving passive objects through the analysis of their backscattered response. The reciprocal interference in objects/tags localization arising from the signal variations caused by objects' and tags' movement is characterized. We present an analytical derivation, based on the Cramér-Rao bound, providing the theoretical localization accuracy of tags and passive objects. The proposed approach represents a fundamental design tool providing insights on how system parameters (power and signal format), network topology, interference, and network configuration (monostatic or multistatic) affect the localization performance.