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Impact of IEEE 802.15.4 Communication Settings on Performance in Asynchronous Two Way UWB Ranging

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Abstract

The ultra wideband (UWB) radio signals are known for their good time resolution enabling implementation of accurate localization and tracking. The recent appearance of commercial UWB transceivers in masses on the market has boosted the interest towards this technology and facilitated its use not just for research, but also for business. In this paper we focus on the problem of UWB-based wireless indoor localization of machines and humans by means of IEEE 802.15.4-2015 high rate pulse repetition UWB technology and specifically the accuracy of such localization. Namely, we report the results of an extensive experimental study revealing the effect of various communication settings on the accuracy of indoor localization for the proposed earlier asymmetric localization protocol. The conducted experiments lasted over 200 hours almost nonstop and involved transmission of more than 30 million ranging packets. In the experiments we have tested over 200 different modes and explored the effect of seven different parameters on the UWB ranging performance. The presented results reveal that the communication settings need to be accounted for when determining the time of flight using UWB. Also we show that the accuracy of ranging is strongly affected by the used channel, data rate and pulse repetition frequency. Finally, we note that the increase of the UWB transceiver’s temperature due to self-heating has a strong effect on the results of the localization.

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Notes

  1. A good illustration for this is the fact that over a half of the solutions presented in the Microsoft Indoor Localization Competition in 2016 were based on UWB [8].

  2. http://www.cwc.oulu.fi/wnl/.

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Acknowledgements

The research was undertaken in the context of the University of Oulu ITEE WIILMOR and EU FP7 CoNHealth projects. The work of the first author has been partially supported by the Nokia Foundation Grant Nos. 201510090 and 201610150, and the Sähköinsinööriliiton Säätiö 2016 Grant. Also the authors wish to thank Dr. Jussi Haapola from CWC for his advices and feedback about the composition of the experiments and the selection of parameters for them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Konstantin Mikhaylov, Juha Petäjäjärvi & Matti Hämäläinen

  2. Biomimetics and Intelligent Systems Group, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Antti Tikanmäki

  3. Division of Physics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan

    Ryuji Kohno

  4. University of Oulu Research Institute Japan CWC-Nippon Co. Ltd., Yokohama, Japan

    Ryuji Kohno

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  1. Konstantin Mikhaylov
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  2. Juha Petäjäjärvi
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Correspondence to Konstantin Mikhaylov.

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Mikhaylov, K., Petäjäjärvi, J., Hämäläinen, M. et al. Impact of IEEE 802.15.4 Communication Settings on Performance in Asynchronous Two Way UWB Ranging. Int J Wireless Inf Networks 24, 124–139 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-017-0340-9

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