Positioning Using Wireless Networks: Applications, Recent Progress and Future Challenges

Positioning has recently received considerable attention as a key enabler in emerging applications such as extended reality, unmanned aerial vehicles and smart environments. These applications require both data communication and high-precision positioning, and thus they are particularly well-suited to be offered in wireless networks (WNs). The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of existing works and new trends in the field of positioning techniques from both the academic and industrial perspectives. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of positioning in WNs, covering the background, applications, measurements, state-of-the-art technologies and future challenges. The paper outlines the applications of positioning from the perspectives of public facilities, enterprises and individual users. We investigate the key performance indicators and measurements of positioning systems, followed by the review of the key enabler techniques such as artificial intelligence/large models and adaptive systems. Next, we discuss a number of typical wireless positioning technologies. We extend our overview beyond the academic progress, to include the standardization efforts, and finally, we provide insight into the challenges that remain. The comprehensive overview of exisitng efforts and new trends in the field of positioning from both the academic and industrial communities would be a useful reference to researchers in the field.