Vehicular speed estimation using received signal strength from mobile phones

This paper introduces an algorithm that estimates the speed of a mobile phone by matching time-series signal strength data to a known signal strength trace from the same road. Knowing a mobile phone’s speed is useful, for example, to estimate traffic congestion or other transportation performance metrics. The proposed algorithm can be implemented in the carrier’s infrastructure with Network Measurement Reports obtained by a base station or on a mobile phone with signal strength readings obtained by the handset and depending on implementation choices, promises lower energy consumption than Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. We evaluate the effectiveness of our algorithm on highway and arterial roads using GSM signal strength traces obtained from several phones over a one month period. The results show that the Correlation algorithm is significantly more accurate than existing techniques based on handoffs or phone localization. Author Keywords Received Signal Strength (RSS...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: HUC
• Authors: Gayathri Chandrasekaran, Tam Vu, Alexander Varshavsky, Marco Gruteser, Richard P. Martin, Jie Yang, Yingying Chen
• Keywords: HUC 2010, Human Computer Interaction, Mobile Phone, Signal Strength, Signal Strength Trace