Location-based services exploited through connected smart devices and vehicles (e.g. smartphones, wearable, smart mobility), alongside with modern applications such as Intelligent
Transportation Systems, service robotics or precision agriculture, require reliable, continuous and precise navigation, positioning and timing information for their successful operation
and implantation in the market. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is the main source of global positioning data, and this dependence can only but grow in the future. Such a trend motivates the tremendous effort which has been devoted to improve standard GNSS solutions in a plethora of applications in order to counteract the main vulnerabilities of the system. Within the seamless, anywhere, anytime navigation context, collaborative/cooperative positioning/navigation is the cutting-edge research field of interest in this Special Session.
Collaborative strategies have been used as an effective way to compensate the weaknesses of standalone navigation solutions in robotics and multi-agent systems for several years. In the last decade similar concepts and approaches have been extended to GNSS by sharing complementary data within a swarm of GNSS receivers to boost accuracy and precision, and/or to increase reliability and availability of the service. Different communication technologies can be considered to carry out this task such as Direct Short Range Communication, cellular networks (e.g., LTE or 5G), IEEE 802.11x wireless connectivity, or dedicated infrastructure as alternative ranging such as IR-UWB. On top of these network infrastructures, one can consider for instance centralized/distributed estimation solutions or collaborative navigation based on the exchange of raw GNSS measurements (DGNSS-like) among possible approaches to networked GNSS receivers. Alternatively, cooperative solutions can rely on the exchange of data obtained through exteroceptive sensors such as UWB, ultrasound, Lidar and cameras, used as standalone navigation systems or coupled with GNSS to improve localization, positioning and navigation performance. Such alternative sources of information are key players in GNSS-denied environments.
Experts in the navigation, robotics and signal processing fields are invited to submit their contributions to this Special Session on the following: i) innovative GNSS-based or sensor-based algorithms, performance analysis and/or implementations within the paradigm of networked receivers for collaborative positioning, ii) their use in harsh propagation conditions, GNSS-denied contexts or under radio threats (jamming, spoofing), and/or iii) specially targeting robust, highsensitivity, resilient solutions.
Submissions to the special session in either of the paper types (IEEE or open-access) can be made at the ICL-GNSS submission site. A virtual special issue in MDPI Sensors (JCR IF 3.031) open-access journal will be edited after the conference based on extended top-tier papers from the conference.
Organizers:
- Alex Minetto, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
- Dr. Jordi Vilà-Valls, ISAE-SUPAERO, University of Toulouse, France