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The pros and cons of mobile phone positioning technology in the 5G era [Copy link]

Currently, 80% to 90% of data services occur indoors. As more and more B-side industry application scenarios have put forward higher requirements for the accuracy of indoor positioning, traditional indoor positioning technology is constrained by factors such as coverage, accuracy, energy consumption, and cost, and appears to be "incapable of doing so". Satellite positioning cannot penetrate buildings, and both people and objects are often "lost" indoors.

5G communication technology will shift from outdoor macro coverage to indoor deep coverage. As it has in-band positioning capabilities, it can simultaneously meet the needs of communication, data transmission, positioning, etc. It can also be integrated with multiple positioning technologies to achieve overall improvement in positioning accuracy and coverage. It can be said that 5G communication technology will solve many problems of indoor positioning.


Why do you get lost indoors?


Outdoors, we obtain relatively accurate location information basically relying on the communication between mobile terminals and satellite positioning. Indoors, however, satellite positioning is not so "smart". Satellite positioning technology cannot penetrate the walls of buildings, cannot establish stable and low-latency positioning information, and cannot distinguish floors. Therefore, indoors and outdoors are completely two different positioning systems.


In order to obtain their own location information indoors, service providers deploy relay base stations or indoor positioning facilities. Through hardware such as Bluetooth and WiFi, as well as technologies such as SLAM and UWB, they collect data such as arrival time difference and arrival angle, and estimate location information by combining more than three base stations.


It is understood that depending on the signals used, the current mainstream indoor positioning technologies include Bluetooth positioning, WiFi and UWB (ultra-wideband positioning), each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages.


Bluetooth positioning is the most commonly used, with an accuracy of meters and low energy consumption, but a small positioning range and the need to build a separate Bluetooth positioning network and install a dedicated program to report data; WiFi coverage is wider, but WiFi signals are extremely susceptible to interference, requiring the construction of a separate WiFi positioning network; UWB positioning accuracy can reach decimeters, with strong penetration and low power consumption, but UWB devices are expensive, require separate networks and terminals for positioning, and are not easy to promote.


“These existing indoor positioning technologies are relatively mature, but due to the high complexity of indoor scenes, many personalized application requirements, and high deployment and maintenance costs, not every building can deploy these positioning facilities.


In addition, indoor scenes are updated quickly, and existing positioning technologies seem unable to strike a balance between positioning accuracy and commercial costs. ” pointed out Ding Haiyu, director of the Wireless and Terminal Technology Research Institute of China Mobile Research Institute.


It can be said that indoor positioning technology has not made any breakthroughs in recent years.


What is the value of 5G in positioning systems?


For indoor coverage services and industry vertical application expansion, indoor precise positioning is a strong demand. Li Fuchang, deputy director of the Wireless Research Department of China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute, said in an interview with a reporter from China Electronics News that indoor positioning scenarios are services for C-end users, such as parking lot positioning, supermarket guide services, cultural tours, etc., providing services such as personnel navigation and route planning. However, in the 5G era, indoor positioning is more of a B-end application scenario, such as smart warehousing and logistics, factory resource interconnection, public security and judicial services, and electric power energy.


The gradual improvement of 5G communication infrastructure is an opportunity to solve the "confusion" of indoor positioning. So, what is the value of 5G in the positioning system? How will indoor communication and positioning be combined?


Li Fuchang pointed out that in the 3G and 4G era, operators had tried positioning based on wireless communication signals. However, since 3G and 4G networks are mainly passive systems, they do not have the ability to perform indoor positioning. The bandwidth of a small number of active indoor systems is small, the subcarrier spacing is small, and the positioning accuracy is only a dozen meters, which is difficult to meet the needs of indoor applications. In addition, the 3G and 4G network architectures do not define positioning servers and external application interfaces, making it difficult to promote and apply them.


The advantage of 5G networks lies in their larger bandwidth and subcarrier spacing, which improves the accuracy of 5G indoor positioning (the positioning accuracy is about 5 meters in the 3.5GHz frequency band, and the millimeter wave positioning accuracy can reach 3 meters or higher). The 5G R16 version enhances the positioning of 5G base stations and introduces new functional entities and positioning technologies. R16 defines an end-to-end positioning system framework, adds a positioning processing platform, provides application interfaces, and introduces RTT (Round Trip Time) positioning, which not only solves the problem of difficulty in integrating with applications due to network architecture limitations in the 4G era, but also can achieve single-station positioning by measuring the round-trip time difference.


Li Fuchang also pointed out that in the 5G R17 version being promoted, the industry has proposed the goal of further enhancing positioning capabilities - for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) scenario, the horizontal positioning accuracy target is 0.5 meters, and the vertical positioning accuracy is 1 meter; the positioning accuracy target for general commercial scenarios is 1 meter horizontally and 3 meters vertically. The end-to-end positioning delay is within 100ms.


These capabilities enable 5G positioning to meet the positioning application requirements of most scenarios.


Compared with other positioning technologies, places where 5G networks have been built have the ability to achieve high-precision positioning, without the need to build a separate positioning network, or require specific terminals or tags. The ability to combine 5G with cloud computing, big data, AI, and MEC can also bring more abundant network applications.


5G will integrate positioning with different technologies


The demand for the Internet of Everything brought about by the 5G era will greatly promote the market demand for indoor positioning. Indoor positioning is a complete system, including terminals, networks, platforms, applications and other parts. The network layer is the network of various positioning base stations, which can be 5G positioning, or other positioning networks such as Bluetooth, WiFi, ultra-wideband, or a fusion of these technologies. In Ding Haiyu's view, 5G itself can provide the ability to meet the positioning application of most scenarios, but this ability cannot solve all positioning problems, and 5G needs to be integrated with different technologies for positioning.


Li Fuchang said that 5G not only provides its own in-band positioning capability in indoor positioning, but also provides fusion positioning capability. It performs comprehensive positioning through multiple technologies such as SLAM, Bluetooth, UWB and information from positioning terminals. The advantages of each technology complement each other, reducing the comprehensive positioning cost and improving positioning accuracy and robustness.


According to Ding Haiyu, the integrated application business based on location services has initially developed, including the use of 5G+Bluetooth positioning in automobile assembly to meet its production positioning needs, and the use of 5G+UWB positioning in electric power to meet production needs; in the airport's indoor positioning service, 5G+Bluetooth positioning is used to meet consumer navigation and manager needs; in warehousing and logistics scenarios, 5G+Bluetooth AOA positioning is used to meet intelligent logistics management.


In October this year, China Mobile, ZTE and other manufacturers jointly released the "5G Indoor Converged Positioning White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper"). The "White Paper" points out that new technologies, new formats and new applications are often accompanied by new challenges, including the need for the external interface of 5G small base stations to be enriched and mature, the lack of popularization of indoor maps, the privacy protection of indoor location information and personal data, and the connection problems between indoor and outdoor positioning.


In the view of Li Xiaotong, deputy general manager of wireless products at ZTE, in order to overcome these challenges as soon as possible, it is necessary to start from the network layer of indoor positioning and realize the overall layout of the end-to-end industrial chain. From the terminal level, it is necessary to promote the application of R16 5G chips and Bluetooth 5.2 chips as soon as possible, and promote the standardization and interconnection of UWB chips; from the platform level, location information providers need to speed up the layout of basic services such as the construction of indoor maps; from the application level, it is also necessary to attract more developers to integrate into the indoor positioning ecosystem, enrich the system application form, and form a unified application solution.


The pros and cons of mobile phone positioning technology in the 5G era


Although the accuracy of network positioning for 5G mobile phone terminals can be greatly improved, law enforcement agencies still have concerns. Why?


The 5G era has arrived. From the following picture, we can see that the positioning accuracy of mobile phone terminals under 5G networks can be greatly improved compared with before:


In theory, the positioning accuracy of 5G will be able to reach within 1 meter.

Compared with the previous 2G/3G/4G network's positioning accuracy of about 50 to 300 meters (referring to the city), there is a great improvement.


This is mainly due to the characteristics of 5G. The frequency range of 5G is 24gHz~32gHz (FR2 band). If calculated at 28gHz, the wavelength is about 10.7mm, so 5G belongs to millimeter wave communication. Its advantages are large transmission bandwidth and high transmission efficiency, but its disadvantages are also obvious, that is, short transmission distance, poor penetration, and easy to be blocked...


Therefore, 5G overcomes the above shortcomings in the form of "small cells", that is, making the base stations more densely distributed.


Compared with 2G/3G/4G base stations that provide service distances of hundreds of meters or even kilometers, 5G base stations only cover a few dozen meters.


To give an example, a 4G base station is like a lighthouse that can illuminate very far; whereas 5G is like many small flashlights that can’t illuminate very far, but there are small flashlights everywhere.


Therefore, when there are 5G small base stations everywhere around you: garages, offices, lamp poles, billboards, shops..., your exact location can be located more accurately based on them.


In modern civilization, almost everyone can't live without a mobile phone. Therefore, a mobile phone has also become the best mobile positioning (spy) tool. When this mobile positioning tool can achieve sub-meter accuracy, how many people are not excited? 5G decided to introduce a public key and private key mechanism. The public key is used to disclose and encrypt, and the private key is used to retain and decrypt. The public key is stored on the mobile phone, and the private key is stored in the hands of the operator. In this way, only the operator can decrypt the real identity information of the mobile phone. Law enforcement officers/attackers can only get the encrypted information, and they cannot decrypt the IMSI without the private key.


Of course, some people will say that you don’t have to shout out your IMSI to let others know every time. The mobile phone also has a temporary identity code (GUTI/TMSI), which is used most of the time and does not disclose the real IMSI. But you have to know that there are many times when you have to provide your IMSI, such as when you first access the network or roam to another base station and that base station does not know your GUTI/TMSI, it will require you to provide your real IMSI again. In addition, there is another situation where a fake base station will also ask you to hand over your IMSI.


Thus, Europol puts it bluntly: “This improvement in 5G communication standards protects the identity and location privacy of users, but in turn undermines the ability of police to conduct ‘lawful intercepts’ – in other words, interception or eavesdropping.”


Therefore, the EU has more directly asked 5G technology providers to "leave a back door" for law enforcement agencies (this reminds me of their serious look when they accused a certain company). In fact, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, because the United States, the world's beacon of human rights, has long been ahead!


Of course, some friends may ask, as a law enforcement agency, why do we need to go to so much trouble to capture IMSI ourselves? Wouldn’t it be better to just let the operator provide it?

Indeed, operators can use the legally owned metadata of users to completely restore a person's whereabouts.


In the era of big data, everyone is running naked, especially in front of the authorities! To be honest, I currently have three mobile phones. I only bring the elderly mobile phone when I go out, and I also use special equipment to surf the Internet at home. That's enough, go to sleep.

This post is from RF/Wirelessly
 

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