Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Mobile applications that provide location-based services need to retrieve the user's current location. It is well known that the location of a mobile device can be determined by using GPS. In addition to GPS, the use of network-based location estimation methods in today’s mobile devices is common. This paper aims to study the accuracy of the network-based location estimation methods in cellular networks. An empirical study is carried out to find out the major factors that affect the accuracy of location estimation. Firstly, a number of measurement tools are developed and identified for the collection of location information of a mobile device. The information includes the actual location and those locations that are estimated by different external location providers. Secondly, a number of experiments are designed to collect location information in different situations and conditions. Thirdly, data are processed and analyzed to identify the major factors that affect the accuracy. Our experiment results show that the performance of location positioning in cellular networks in the urban area is better than that in the suburban and open areas