Enabling
Technologies for Location Based Services (LBS)
Description: "Access of the right
information anytime anywhere" is becoming the new driving
force that drives the information technology revolution.
The "right" information is information that is
relevant based on the user's profile and his/her current
position and/or time. Such services will contribute in improving
individual and public safety (report the position of a casualty
or of a fire). They will also facilitate effective information
dissemination and enable individual or asset tracking. The
benefits of such services will be immediately obvious to
a number of industries as well as visible to many individuals.
This project aims at developing the technologies that will
allow wide deployment of such services. Specifically, during
this project we investigated various Automatic Location
Identification (ALI) techniques . We analyzed the Received
Signal Level (RSL) approach and derived location estimates
through Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE). The simulation
results we obtained so far are promising and indicate that
they can provide location estimates that are more accurate
than similar techniques.
This project involves collaboration between the University
of Cyprus and the Cyprus Telecommunication Authority (CYTA)
and consists of two main parts. The first part is concerned
with the investigation of technologies that improve the
accuracy of automatic location identification estimates.
We shall investigate the existing methods and will seek
to improve their accuracy using intelligent systems as well
as derive new approaches based on stochastic modeling and
analysis. The second part involves the development and deployment
of pilot location based services (LBS) which will allow
service providers to disseminate information based on the
subscriber's location. A number of LBS will be developed
including a service for identifying the exact location of
an emergency call such that emergency crews can act immediately,
thus improving their chances for success. It is anticipated
that this project will have significant socioeconomic benefits
for Cyprus. These range from improving public safety to
stimulating new product and service development.