Positioning in cellular networks: Past, present, future

Abstract

Positioning of people and things is now being considered as one vital feature for many applications. The positioning support in cellular networks started with the regulatory requirements for emergency call, and has been enhanced over time to provide support with higher accuracy and better coverage including even deep indoor areas. Devices and use cases are not limited to regular users with mobile handsets, but include also very low cost, power and complexity devices on one hand, and advanced devices like robots, autonomous vehicles and factory equipments on the other. This paper aims to provide an overview of the positioning methods that have been introduced in the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) up to the currently developed release (Rel.15), as well as different considered scenarios and deployment conditions. Also, the ambition is to describe use cases for and requirements on positioning in emerging and future cellular networks such as 5G.