HELPS for Emergency Location Service: Hyper-Enhanced Local Positioning System

TL;DR

HELPS is a human-in-the-loop emergency location system that uses uplink signal measurements to quickly find callers, functioning without GPS or software changes, and is suitable for all mobile phones including legacy devices.

Contribution

The paper introduces HELPS, a novel emergency location system that enhances search efficiency without requiring hardware or software modifications on mobile phones.

Findings

Provides accurate emergency location without GPS or Wi-Fi.

Works with all mobile phones, including feature phones.

Reduces search time in emergency scenarios.

Abstract

In this study, we propose a novel positioning and searching system for emergency location services, namely the hyper-enhanced local positioning system (HELPS), which is applicable to all mobile phone users, including legacy feature phone users. In the case of an emergency, rescuers are dispatched with portable signal measurement equipment around the estimated location of the emergency caller. Each signal measurement device measures the uplink signal from the mobile phone of the caller. After calculating the rough location of the caller's mobile phone based on these measurements, rescuers can efficiently search for the caller using the received uplink signal strength. Thus, the positioning accuracy in a conventional sense is not a limitation for rescuers in finding the caller. HELPS is not a traditional positioning system but rather a system with humans in the loop designed to reduce search time in emergencies. HELPS can provide emergency location information even in environments where the GPS or Wi-Fi is not functional. Furthermore, for HELPS operation, no hardware changes or software installations are required on the caller's mobile phone.