Positional accuracy measurement and error modeling for mobile tracking

This paper presents a method of determining the statistical positional accuracy of a moving object being tracked by any 2D (but particularly radiolocation) positioning system without requiring a more accurate reference system. Commonly for testing performance only static positional errors are measured, but typically for radiolocation systems the positional performance is significantly different for moving objects compared with stationary objects. When only the overall statistical performance is required, the paper describes a measurement technique based on determining 1D cross-track errors from a nominal path, and then using this data set to determine the overall 2D positional error statistics. Comparison with simulated data shows that the method has good accuracy. The method is also tested with vehicle tracking in a city and people tracking within a building. For the indoor case, static and dynamic measurements allowed the degrading effect of body-worn devices due to signal blockage to be determined. Error modeling is also performed and a Rayleigh-Gamma model is proposed to describe the radial positional errors. It is shown that this model has a good match with both indoor and outdoor field measurements.