Smart Positioning and Timing

In the Smart City framework, positioning and navigation play a relevant role as fundamental enabling technologies for a plethora of application fields and services. In intelligent transportation system, the position information of the agents is a key factor for monitoring purposes as well as for the design and development of a sustainable urban mobility. However, the use of position and time data is not limited to ITS.
Connected ”Internet of Things,” self-driving cars, semi-autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), location-based services, smart agriculture are just few examples of new paradigms being developed that rely on accurate and precise knowledge of user position. Furthermore, such information needs in most of the cases be correlated to precise time knowledge or precise time dissemination for synchronization purposes.
In outdoor scenarios, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and Beidou, play a vital role and offer a reliable and accurate positioning information in open sky conditions, but they suffer in dense urban environments or they are not available indoor.
To circumvent the limitations of GNSS, they are being integrated with sensors, or complemented by a variety of other technologies exploiting new solutions that rely on the increased computational capabilities and flexibility of modern Information and Communication Technologies.
In addition to classical Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), such as accelerometers and gyroscopes of high and low grade, different kind of sensors are being considered, as, for example, magnetometers, barometers, cameras and mobile network signals, as well as signals-of-opportunity.  5G communication is a promising perspective; for example, defining V2V and V2X links and protocols, it provides an effective networking infrastructure for collaborative and cooperative positioning.
Timing dissemination is, as well, a key enabler for new reconfigurable communication networks, smart energy grids, as well as for many Location Based Services (LBS), where the time-stamp of the exchanged information must be available and reliable (e.g. smart payment, pay-as-you-drive services, etc.).
The goal of this section is to solicit papers on modern and improved technologies for smart positioning and timing with reference to smart application and services, addressing the current challenges and  leading edge results.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Global Navigation Satellite Systems and related user technolgies
• Cellular based positioning and hybrid approaches
• Distributed and collaborative localization
• Positioning for autonomous robotics and UAV navigation
• Positioning and timing technologies for IoT
• Passive localization
• Simultaneous localization and mapping algorithms
• Positioning using Signals of Opportunity
• Positioning and timing user terminals design
• Advanced multisensor integrated systems and sensor fusion technologies
• Joint localization and communication
• Non-radio based navigation
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning algorithms for localization
• High accuracy and precision positioning
• Robustness against jamming and spoofing