RELATE: Relative Positioning of Mobile Objects in Ad hoc Networks

Positioning of mobile devices and objects is a core problem in emerging computing systems, for example for self-organisation in wireless sensor networks and context-aware services in pervasive computing environments. Commonly this problem is addressed with instrumentation of environments in order to provide location information. The RELATE project, in contrast, investigates relative positioning of mobile objects to determine their spatial arrangement, free of surrounding infrastructure.

The research programme of the project addresses the following aspects:

• measurement of the spatial relationship between mobile objects with embedded sensors
• scalable communication and organisation for ad hoc networks of relative positioning devices
• algorithms for distribution localization in sensor networks
• architecture and software platforms for relative positioning system

The initial stages of the project have been concerned with creating sensing technologies and systems appropriate for collaborative positioning on surfaces. Such systems are particularly relevant in the fields of mobile computing, computer-supported cooperative work, and user interfaces, where the locations and orientations of objects on surfaces are often required. In the systems we have developed, small, wireless devices perform peer-to-peer sensing and produce relative location and orientation estimates without relying on pre-existing infrastructure.