Mobile positioning for location dependent services in GSM networks

A feasible Mobile Positioning solution is often sought after by network operators and service providers alike. Location-dependent applications create a new domain of services which might not only be of interest to the next generation of mobile users but also create new potential revenue streams. Applications vary from emergency services and tracking to location-based information services, location-based billing and location-dependent advertising. Due to the shortcomings of location-related information present in GSM networks, and the lack of positioning functionality in most of the commonly sold mobile devices, a straightforward solution for mobile positioning does not currently exist. This research intends to propose cellular positioning methods which do not require any significant changes to the network or the mobile device itself, which are feasible and cost effective, and which provide sufficient accuracy for certain categories of location-based services. These techniques are based on the proper analysis of signal measurement data, probabilistic geometric computation of location areas likely to represent the user’s location, and the correlation of this data with information obtained from path loss models used in the design and planning of a mobile radio network.peer-reviewe

Temporal plan quality improvement and repair using local search

This paper presents an approach to repair or improve the quality of plans which make use of temporal and numeric constructs. While current stateof- the-art temporal planners are biased towards minimising makespan, the focus of this approach is to maximise plan quality. Local search is used to explore the neighbourhood of an input seed plan and find valid plans of a better quality with respect to the specified cost function. Experiments show that this algorithm is effective to improve plans generated by other planners, or to perform plan repair when the problem definition changes during the execution of a plan.peer-reviewe

Temporal planning with constants in context

Required concurrency can cause actions to interfere with running continuous effects. This interference can modify the rate of change, including the polarity, of a continuous effect. In this work, we propose a mechanism to support discrete interference of rates of change caused by instantaneous actions, the start and end endpoints of other durative actions, and numeric timed initial fluents. Current temporal planners have very limited support for such numeric dynamics. COLIN reduces a temporal numeric planning problem to a linear program (LP), but operates on an implicit assumption that the rate of change of a durative action’s continuous effect is constant throughout its execution. In this work we propose some enhancements to the algorithms used in COLIN, in order to support discrete interference of continuous effects, and a new planner, DICE, was developed to implement them.peer-reviewe

Temporal planning with semantic attachment of non-linear monotonic continuous behaviour

Non-linear continuous change is common in realworld problems, especially those that model physical systems. We present an algorithm which builds upon existent temporal planning techniques based on linear programming to approximate non-linear continuous monotonic functions. These are integrated through a semantic attachment mechanism, allowing external libraries or functions that are difficult to model in native PDDL to be evaluated during the planning process. A new planning system implementing this algorithm was developed and evaluated. Results show that the addition of this algorithm to the planning process can enable it to solve a broader set of planning problems.peer-reviewe

Mobile Positioning for Location Dependent Services in GSM Networks

A feasible Mobile Positioning solution is often sought after by network operators and service providers alike. Location-dependent applications create a new domain of services which might not only be of interest to the next generation of mobile users but also create new potential revenue streams. Applications vary from emergency services and tracking to location-based information services, location-based billing and location-dependent advertising. Due to the shortcomings of location-related information present in GSM networks, and the lack of positioning functionality in most of the commonly sold mobile devices, a straightforward solution for mobile positioning does not currently exist. This research intends to propose cellular positioning methods which do not require any significant changes to the network or the mobile device itself, which are feasible and cost effective, and which provide sufficient accuracy for certain categories of location-based services. These techniques are based on the proper analysis of signal measurement data, probabilistic geometric computation of location areas likely to represent the user's location, and the correlation of this data with information obtained from path loss models used in the design and planning of a mobile radio network