Positioning in indoor environment is one of the most important and interesting topic in navigation system that still present numerous open problems to investigate. Many researchers are attempting to investigate on technologies able to reach valid location in an indoor space, where the well-known GNSS positioning systems are not able to operate. Among the many solutions proposed for location-based services, several wireless communications technologies have the potential to be employed for indoor positioning. In this paper, an Ultrawideband (UWB) indoor positioning commercial system is presented which exploits two-way time of flight (TWTF) to compute range measurements. These measurements are used in multi-lateration method to compute the position of a trans-receiver (TAG). Firstly, the calibration results have been shown, comparing the internal IMU sensor of UWB system with a mass-market one, using the angles measured thanks to the total station as reference. Secondly, we also have statically analysed the positioning and the ranging capabilities of the system in a favourable environment, as an indoor office room. The average 3D accuracy obtained from the test is 100 ± 25mm. Also the ranging measurements has been analysed as the raw data from which the Pozyx® inner algorithm starts to compute the positions. It has been demonstrated that the range accuracy is about 320 ± 30mm. After these first tests, the system has also been tested in a harsh environment in a narrow corridor where a horizontal accuracy of about 87.4 mm is obtained with a maximum ranging error of ±225 mm. The system and algorithms tested in this report gave almost similar performances in both environments.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning is currently a common practice thanks to the development of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The possibility to obtain raw GNSS measurements, such as pseudoranges and carrier-phase, from these instruments has opened new windows towards precise positioning using smart devices. This work aims to demonstrate the positioning performances in the case of a typical single-base Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning while considering two different kinds of multi-frequency and multi-constellation master stations: a typical geodetic receiver and a smartphone device. The results have shown impressive performances in terms of precision in both cases: with a geodetic receiver as the master station, the reachable precisions are several mm for all 3D components while if a smartphone is used as the master station, the best results can be obtained considering the GPS+Galileo constellations, with a precision of about 2 cm both for 2D and Up components in the case of L1+L5 frequencies, or 3 cm for 2D components and 2 cm for the Up, in the case of an L1 frequency. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that it is not feasible to reach the phase ambiguities fixing: despite this, the precisions are still good and also the obtained 3D accuracies of positioning solutions are less than 1 m. So, it is possible to affirm that these results are very promising in the direction of cooperative positioning using smartphone devices.

Landslides are one of the major geo-hazards which have constantly affected Italy especially over the last few years. In fact 82% of the Italian territory is affected by this phenomenon which destroys the environment and often causes deaths: therefore it is necessary to monitor these effects in order to detect and prevent these risks. Nowadays, most of this type of monitoring is carried out by using traditional topographic instruments (e.g. total stations) or satellite techniques such as global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers. The level of accuracy obtainable with these instruments is sub-centimetrical in post-processing and centimetrical in real-time; however, the costs are very high (many thousands of euros). The rapid diffusion of GNSS networks has led to an increase of using mass-market receivers for real-time positioning. In this paper, the performances of GNSS mass-market receiver are reported with the aim of verifying if this type of sensor can be used for real-time landslide monitoring: for this purpose a special slide was used for simulating a landslide, since it enabled us to give manual displacements thanks to a micrometre screw. These experiments were also carried out by considering a specific statistical test (a modified Chow test) which enabled us to understand if there were any displacements from a statistical point of view in real time. The tests, the algorithm and results are reported in this paper.

We present a methodology to use a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to perform photogrammetric surveys and detailed geological mapping in mountain areas. This work is specially related to the presented case study with the aim to realize geomorphological maps from UAVs, since they can house different types of sensors and acquire data more rapidly and cheaply than traditional geological surveys directly obtained with field observations. This work explains how UAVs can obtain digital terrain models, orthophotos and 3D models in order to create slope and aspect maps for geological purposes. By integrating data from UAVs with geological surveys made on the field, geological maps can be produced where many of the geological elements are presented. This paper presents the integration of geomatics and geological techniques. Starting from UAV slope map and orthophotos, a new geological map was created in a faster and more detailed way compared to traditional geological survey on the ground. The application of this method regards a sector of the Western Alps (NW Italy), formed by glaciers and deep-seated gravitational slope deformations.

The growth of location-based services (LBS) has increased rapidly in last years, mainly due to the possibility to exploit low-cost sensors installed in portable devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This work aims to show a low-cost multi-sensor platform developed by the authors in which an ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor positioning system is added to a classical global navigation satellite systems–inertial navigation system (GNSS-INS) integration, in order to acquire different synchronized data for further data fusion analysis in order to exploit seamless positioning. The data fusion is based on an extended Kalman filter (EKF) and on a geo-fencing approach which allows the navigation solution to be provided continuously. In particular, the proposed algorithm aims to solve a navigation task of a pedestrian user moving from an outdoor space to an indoor environment. The methodology and the system setup is presented with more details in the paper. The data acquired and the real-time positioning estimation are analysed in depth and compared with ground truth measurements. Particular attention is given to the UWB positioning system and its behaviour with respect to the environment. The proposed data fusion algorithm provides an overall horizontal and 3D accuracy of 35 cm and 45 cm, respectively, obtained considering 5 different measurement campaigns.