Knowing the position of a device in its environment becomes an important issue for applications providing services based on the position. Many solutions have been proposed going from satellite-based techniques (i.e. GPS…), video tracking or radio-electrical waves combining… However, these techniques reach their limit when very high accuracy is required (lower than 10 cm), especially in indoor environment.
In such a stringent requirement, Ultra Wide Band based techniques have emerged as accurate solutions.
UWB is recognized as the most efficient solution for indoor positioning and Apple for instance made UWB chips embedded in their iPhones, offering numerous opportunities for localization-based applications and services. Several SMEs are therefore currently investigating the efficiency of this promising technology. GRANIT team was recently involved with Ticatag and Klaxoon, in the Plug&Pos project (AAP PME I&R, 2016-2019) whose aim was to bring additional content to a visitor in a museum once he is localized and we know his orientation. The Plug&Pos project used Zyggie [1] platform as hardware for the final product demonstration.
UWB solutions are also promising solutions for Factory of the Future, to help industry manage the different flows of good or persons. Orange Labs, Prolann, Axalon and GRANIT are associated to explore UWB positioning performance in such a context in the Mo.Di.Flu project (AAP PME I&R, 2019-2021). Industry 4.0 is indeed considered by Orange Labs as a key target for offering new localization-based services for factories. In the Mo.Di.Flu project a new wired synchronized UWB platform is developed in which we will embed our low power localization algorithms [2-3].
[1] A. Courtay, M. Le Gentil, O. Berder, A. Carer, P. Scalart, O. Sentieys, Zyggie: A Wireless Body Area Network platform for indoor positioning and motion tracking, IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2018
[2] M.L. Diallo, A. Courtay, M. Le Gentil, O. Berder, Direction-Aided Indoor Positioning Leveraging Ultra-Wideband Radio, IEEE International Conference on Vehicular Technology (VTC), 2019
[3] A. Courtay, M. Le Gentil, O. Berder, P. Scalart, S. Fontaine, A. Carer, Anchor Selection Algorithm for Mobile Indoor Positioning using WSN with UWB Radio, IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium (SAS), 2019
