Cooperative simultaneous localization and synchronization: A distributed hybrid message passing algorithm

Localization and synchronization in wireless networks are strongly related when they are based on internode time measurements. We leverage this relation by presenting a message passing algorithm for cooperative simultaneous localization and synchronization (CoSLAS). The proposed algorithm jointly estimates the locations and clock parameters of the network nodes in a fully decentralized manner while requiring time measurements and communications only between neighboring nodes and making only minimal assumptions about the network topology. Low computation and communication requirements are achieved by a hybrid use of sample-based and Gaussian belief propagation. Our simulations demonstrate performance advantages of the proposed CoSLAS algorithm over separate state-of-the-art localization and synchronization algorithms.