On the Performance of Range Based Bayesian Tracking

In this letter we analyze the performance of location tracking for mobile devices that do not have direct access to Global Positioning Systems (GPS). To estimate positions, measurements of the device´s distance to reference beacons are combined with measurements of its velocity in a Bayesian framework. We derive an analytical closed form description of the RMS error of the Bayesian position estimates when the tracking is posed as either a filtering or smoothing problem. Our result is independent of any particular tracking algorithm or implementation.