VLOCI: Using Distance Measurements to Improve the Accuracy of Location Coordinates in GPS-Equipped VANETs

Many vehicles rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) to compute their locations. The inaccuracy of GPS devices means sometimes vehicles believe they are located in different lanes or roads altogether. Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) allow vehicles to communicate with each other using wireless means and thus connect them in a very dynamic wireless network. The algorithm VANET LOCation Improve (VLOCI), proposed in this work, uses VANETs and distance measurements taken by each vehicle to improve the location estimates provided by all GPS devices. VLOCI is shown to perform efficient when erroneous distance measurements are present in the environment/ computations.