Evaluation of positioning and ranging errors for UWB indoor applications

Nowadays location information is a common requirement for numerous application fields like Location Based Services (LBS), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), precise agriculture, augmented reality and more. Most common navigation systems rely upon Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) which is by far the most cost-effective outdoor positioning system. Unfortunately, when the operation is moved indoor, the radiofrequency signals broadcasted by the satellites network are not able to achieve the receiver on the earth and the positioning is no longer available. So, dealing with GNSS- denied environment makes it necessary to use alternative solutions to aid navigation. Among the numerous solutions for indoor positioning, Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) systems are particularly interesting due to their signal characteristics. UWB signal allows high accuracy in ranging estimation, it doesn’t interfere with other RF signal like GNSS and Wi-Fi and the hardware it is easily producible and therefore low-cost. In this work some commercial UWB systems are statistically analysed regarding positioning and ranging capability. Also attitude estimation from an inertial platform embedded in one system is validated. The systems are tested in different environments in order to consider the importance of network geometry, environmental noise and motion of the body. The results confirms the capability of these systems to perform centimetric-level positioning and navigation in standard indoor environments like office room or narrow corridor.