Optimal	Estimation	Theory	(Cooperative	Localization)	

Advanced	Signal	Processing	(Signals	of	Opportunity)

Micro-Electro-Mechanical	Systems

uNavChip:	Ultimate	Navigation	Chip

Chip-Scale	Personal	Navigation	System	Integrating	Deterministic	Localization	and	Probabilistic	Signals	of	Opportunity		

Andrei	M	Shkel,	Ph.D.1;	Zak	Kassas,	PhD2;	Solmaz Kia,	PhD1,	Andrei	Chernyshoff,	PhD3

1University	of	California,	Irvine	2University	of	California,	Riverside 3Independant	Consultant

INTRODUCTION

APPROACH

IMPLEMENTATION ENABLING	TECHNOLOGY

REFERENCES

Figure	2. Cloud	of	SOP Figure	3. Cooperative	Localization

ABSTRACT

CONTACTS

Principal	Investigator

Andrei	M.	Shkel,	Professor

University	of	California,	Irvine

Email:	 ashkel@uci.edu

Phone:	(949)	824-3842

Website:	http://mems.eng.uci.edu

Co-Investigator

Zak	Kassas,	Assistant	Professor

University	of	California,	Riverside

Email:	zkassas@ece.ucr.edu

Phone:	(951)	827-5652

Website:	http://aspin.ucr.edu

Co-Investigator

Solmaz Kia,	Assistant	Professor

University	of	California,	Irvine

Email:		solmaz@uci.edu

Phone:	(949)	824-8798

Website:	http://solmaz.eng.uci.edu

This	project	addresses	the	location	

based	services	intended	to	localize	

emergency	responders,	assets	and	

equipment,	and	other	people	(e.g.,	

patients	and	trapped	persons)	

indoors	and	in	covered	outdoor	

environments,	where	GPS	signals	are	

unusable.

Our	technical	approach	is	based	on	

simultaneous	integration	of	

Deterministic,	Probabilistic,	and	

Cooperative	Localization.	

Our	overall	technical	objective	is	to	

design,	build,	and	demonstrate	a	

miniaturized	Personal	Navigation	

System	achieving	the	localization	

accuracy	on	the	level	of	1	meter	in	

GPS-denied	environment	for	hours	

of	operation.		

Inertial	navigation,	with	 foot-mounted	sensors	and	motion	models	

providing	 zero-velocity	updates,	constitute	a	unique,	robust	and	

high	accuracy	dead	reckoning	 capability.

Signals	of	Opportunity (i.e.,	cellular	signals)	can	be	 turned	into	our	

own	“dedicated	pseudolites”	for	position	fixing	and	augmentation.

Cooperative	Localization for	a	team	of	mobile	agents,	with	comm.	

and	comp.	capabilities;	jointly	processing	a	relative	measurement	

between	any	two	agents	increases	localization	accuracy.

Localization,	together	with	communication,	are	key	capabilities	to	

achieve	effective	situation	awareness,	coordination,	and	support.	

Agents	are	preferably	localizing	themselves	w/o	any	infrastructure.

The	enabling	technologies	include	foot-mounted	miniaturized	inertial	

sensors,	ranging	devices,	and	a	communication	(com.)	and	

processing	(proc.)	devices.	

[1] Shkel,	A.	M.	(2013).	Expert	Advice:	The	Chip-Scale	Combinatorial	Atomic	

Navigator.	GPS	World.

[2] Kassas Z.,	et	al	(2017)	I	hear,	therefore	I	know	where	I	am:	Compensating	for	

GNSS	limitations	with	cellular	signals,	IEEE	Signal	Processing	Magazine

[3] J.	Zhu	and	S.	S.	Kia,	(2017),	“Consistent	loosely	coupled	decentralized	

cooperative	navigation	for	team	of	mobile	agents,”	in	ION’s	Int.	Tech	Meeting

Accelerating	Technology	to	

Improve	first	responder	

communications	and	operations

§ Core

Inertial Measurement 

Unit, Clock, 

Altimeter, Proximity

§ Guard

Authenticate 

external signals of 

opportunity

§ Cloud

Detect external 

signals of opportunity

Ultimate Navigation Chip (uNavChip)

Provide maximum autonomy, security, precision 

Guard

Cloud

Core

Demonstrated	near-Navigation	grade	in-run	ARW	and	bias	floor,	[1]

Government	test

ARW 0.0562	deg/rt-hr

Bias 0.2	deg/hr

Recent	lab	test

ARW 0.015	deg/rt-hr

Bias 0.09	deg/hr

0.09 deg/hr

A group of communicating mobile agents 

Figure	1. Inertial	Navigation,	Foot-to-Foot	Ranging,	and	ZUPTing

Deterministic	+	Probabilistic	+	Cooperative

§ Radio	SLAM	with	signals	of	opportunity	(SOPs)

§ Indoor	and	covered	outdoor	cellular	SOP	reception	stochastic	

modeling	and	analysis

§ SOP-aided	INS	and	synthetic	aperture	navigation

§ Radio	SLAM	with	signals	of	opportunity	(SOPs)

§ Indoor	and	covered	outdoor	cellular	SOP	reception	stochastic	

modeling	and	analysis

§ SOP-aided	INS	and	synthetic	aperture	navigation

On-Board	Detection	of	Signals	of	Opportunity

15	mm3

Demonstrated	SOP-aided	INS	with	5.1m	CEP	after	30	sec,	[2]

Predicted	over	70%	improvements	due	to	coop.	localization,	[3]