Waypoint selection for unmanned aerial vehicle-aided calibration in wireless positioning networks

Deploying an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to scatter positioning beacons and further calibrate their positions by obtaining range measurements enables the establishment of a wireless positioning network in GNSS-denied environments where hand placement is not an option. The influence of the UAV trajectory on the calibration quality is investigated and methods to find optimal waypoints at which the UAV makes observations are determined. A Fisher information matrix-based metric is devised and two waypoint selection algorithms are proposed to optimise calibration quality, one-off waypoint selection, and iterative and incremental waypoint selection. Numerical results show that optimised waypoints provide more information about beacon positions and therefore produce a more accurate wireless positioning network.