Tailored Hidden Markov Model: A Tailored Hidden Markov Model Optimized for Cellular-Based Map Matching

Although the GPS-based positioning is ubiquitous for its high precision, the high power consumption brought by the high sampling frequency and the poor GPS signal penetration limits its availability in locating low-power mobile devices (especially mobile phones). As a promising complement, the cellular-based positioning has attracted great attention since it consumes much less power as well as its higher availability. However, the sparsity of cellular-based data (due to lower sampling rate) and large localization errors make the measurement accuracy becomes the main challenge of the cellular-based positioning. hidden Markov model can well solve the problem of positioning error of GPS data, but it is less accurate when applied to map matching of cellular-base data. Therefore, to improve accuracy, in this article, we propose a novel algorithm called the tailored hidden Markov model (THMM) that is optimized for the cellular-based data. Specifically, the geometric, the topological, and the probabilistic characteristics have been considered and fully exploited in the THMM design. Our proposed schemes are evaluated using real-world motor vehicle movement trajectories collected in Tianjin and the experimental results are encouraging compared with the state of the art algorithms.

Automated summary

This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of GPS and cellular-based positioning. It highlights the challenges of cellular-based positioning and proposes a novel algorithm called THMM to improve its accuracy. The algorithm is optimized based on the characteristics of cellular-based data and the experimental results demonstrate its effectiveness.