Improving Outdoor Multi-cell Fingerprinting-based Positioning via Mobile Data Augmentation

Accurate outdoor positioning in cellular networks is hindered by sparse, heterogeneous measurement collections and the high cost of exhaustive site surveys. This paper introduces a lightweight, modular mobile data augmentation framework designed to enhance multi-cell fingerprinting-based positioning using operator-collected minimization of drive test (MDT) records. The proposed approach decouples spatial and radio-feature synthesis: kernel density estimation (KDE) models the empirical spatial distribution to generate geographically coherent synthetic locations, while a k-nearest-neighbor (KNN)-based block produces augmented per-cell radio fingerprints. The architecture is intentionally training-free, interpretable, and suitable for distributed or on-premise operator deployments, supporting privacy-aware workflows. We both validate each augmentation module independently and assess its end-to-end impact on fingerprinting-based positioning using a real-world MDT dataset provided by an Italian mobile network operator across diverse urban and peri-urban scenarios. Results show that the proposed KDE-KNN augmentation consistently improves positioning performance with respect to state-of-the-art approaches, reducing the median positioning error by up to 30% in the most sparsely sampled or structurally complex regions. We also observe region-dependent saturation effects, which emerge most rapidly in scenarios with high user density where the information gain from additional synthetic samples quickly diminishes. Overall, the framework offers a practical, low-complexity path to enhance operator positioning services using existing mobile data traces.