Low Cost GSM Positioning System Model Tuning

Communications Commission required that operators of mobile communications networks be able to accurately locate mobile callers requesting emergency assistance via 911. This has led to a lot of activity among cellular and PCS providers to examine positioning options. This project aims to design and implement a system capable to compute the position of a GSM user, in a suburban area, every time the mobile station is in active mode. This will be achieved by triangulation using the timing advance, the signal strength and the radio propagation models. The timing advance will give the distance of the mobile station to the serving base transceiver station while the radio propagation model in conjunction with the signal strength will give the distance of the mobile station to six surrounding base transceiver stations. This positioning system will be cost effective and designed for the only use of the operator in order to tune the network. This system must not require changes of the mobile station or changes of the network infrastructures. The accuracy of the system will be tested against a Global Positioning System. Index Terms—GSM, mobile station, propagation model, signal strength, timing advance