High Precision Indoor Positioning System for Mobile Asset Management and Safety

Abstract

Locating a dynamic object in an industrial environment in real time has been a significant scientific problem. The precise localization and positioning of an object are achieved by Satellite communication, Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), Bluetooth technologies, etc. The use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) has been a success for locating an object in an outdoor environment, but indoor positioning has been impractical when using this technology. A good option is to utilize short-range Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology with Time of Flight, Time Difference of Arrival, and Phase difference of Arrival methods for precise ranging applications. In this research paper, we presented an accurate indoor positioning system using a UWB radio-based embedded system. The system deployed multiple fixed positioning stations called anchors, programmed to detect the position of the dynamic object. The presented system in this paper calculates the object position by using the Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) method and the triangulation method. The Indoor Positioning System (IPS) is found to effectively locate the dynamic object in three-dimensional space within an error rate of +/−0.07 m.

Keywords: UWB, anchors, TOA, RFID, TDOA