Precise positioning with wireless sensor nodes: Monitoring natural hazards in all terrains

Prediction, assessment, and mitigation of surface-affecting natural hazard processes such as landslides, avalanches, earthquakes, and floods call upon geoscientists to rapidly deploy instruments and accurately characterize these earth processes, often with little lead time and under dangerous working conditions. Affected areas may have heavy tree canopies, or high atmospheric dust loads (volcanic eruptions), precluding the use of traditional location techniques like Global Positioning System (GPS). The proliferation of inexpensive radio systems provides a technology that has the potential to redefine the approach to rapid characterization of hazardous earth processes. The research effort described in this paper developed and demonstrated an inexpensive, cooperative radar-like technology for precise distance measurement between intelligent radio nodes.