Abstract
Ultra-wideband (UWB) localization is one of the most promising approaches for indoor localization due to its accurate positioning capabilities, immunity against multipath fading, and excellent resilience against narrowband interference. However, UWB researchers are currently limited by the small amount of feasible open source hardware that is publicly available. We developed a new open source hardware platform, Wi-PoS, for precise UWB localization based on Decawave’s DW1000 UWB transceiver with several unique features: support of both long-range sub-GHz and 2.4 GHz back-end communication between nodes, flexible interfacing with external UWB antennas, and an easy implementation of the MAC layer with the Time-Annotated Instruction Set Computer (TAISC) framework. Both hardware and software are open source and all parameters of the UWB ranging can be adjusted, calibrated, and analyzed. This paper explains the main specifications of the hardware platform, illustrates design decisions, and evaluates the performance of the board in terms of range, accuracy, and energy consumption. The accuracy of the ranging system was below 10 cm in an indoor lab environment at distances up to 5 m, and accuracy smaller than 5 cm was obtained at 50 and 75 m in an outdoor environment. A theoretical model was derived for predicting the path loss and the influence of the most important ground reflection. At the same time, the average energy consumption of the hardware was very low with only 81 mA for a tag node and 63 mA for the active anchor nodes, permitting the system to run for several days on a mobile battery pack and allowing easy and fast deployment on sites without an accessible power supply or backbone network. The UWB hardware platform demonstrated flexibility, easy installation, and low power consumption.
Highlights
Ultra-wideband (UWB) has been a hot topic in the indoor localization, as UWB transceivers compatible with the IEEE 802.15.4a standard are becoming more accessible
One of the main shortcomings in building a suitable UWB localization system is the availability of high-performance and cost-effective open source hard- and software, enabling the construction of flexible and modular testing environments
This paper mainly focuses on open source systems
Summary
Ultra-wideband (UWB) has been a hot topic in the indoor localization, as UWB transceivers compatible with the IEEE 802.15.4a standard are becoming more accessible. The high bandwidth (>500 MHz) of the technology results in a high channel capacity, according to the Shannon–Hartley theorem [2], leading to promising prospects in terms of data rate and power consumption. This is very promising, ongoing research remains bothered by several limitations on a variety of different aspects of the localization. One of the main shortcomings in building a suitable UWB localization system is the availability of high-performance and cost-effective open source hard- and software, enabling the construction of flexible and modular testing environments. To compensate for this shortcoming, we developed
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