Comparative results analysis on positioning with real LTE signals and low-cost hardware platforms

Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks are rapidly deploying around the world, covering the needs of high data rates demanded by many applications. Still, less attention is paid on the positioning capabilities specified in the LTE standard. Thus, an experimental LTE positioning receiver is presented to assess the positioning accuracy in commercial LTE deployments. This receiver is based on a software defined radio (SDR) and a low-cost radio-frequency (RF) front-end, such as the universal software radio peripheral (USRP) or a DVB-T dongle with the Realtek RTL2832U chipset. These two platforms are then used to capture and post-process real LTE signals generated in the laboratory. The positioning results obtained show the viability on the use of this experimental SDR LTE positioning receiver with low-cost hardware platforms for commercial LTE networks.