A PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS ON DRONE LOCO POSITIONING SYSTEM FOR TWO-WAY RANGING PROTOCOL

Abstract

Localization is vital in UAV operation as it monitors the position of each drone in a workspace. Existing localization techniques such as GPS are limited for outdoor implementations and cannot be implemented inside closed spaces or GPS denied areas. To address this concern localization techniques, such as vision systems and radio systems, are developed. The drawback of vision systems is the cost of implementation as the system usually requires multiple cameras strategically positioned around the experimental space to monitor the aerial drone’s position and orientation. Radio localization, on the other hand, is a cheaper alternative for indoor localization as it requires only a set of anchor and tags that communicates through a certain radio frequency; however, experimental setups and materials on this localization technique is limited at this time. This paper offers an analysis of the performance of the loco positioning system, a form of radio localization, through varying configurations for swarm drone applications. The Loco Positioning System possesses two protocols; and this paper focuses on the Two-Way Ranging protocol. The study presents different setup configurations governed by 2 parameters; number of anchors used, and the distance set between anchors, and their corresponding performances. Data showed that an increase in anchor count from 3 to 6 decreases error from 25.96% to 8.45%, and that decreasing the distance between anchors 0.6 m to 1 m would give a minimal increase in error. Users may use these performance reports to determine their ideal setup based on the mentioned parameters.