Multiple Simultaneous Ranging in IR-UWB Networks

Growth in the applications of wireless devices and the need for seamless solutions to location-based services has motivated extensive research efforts to address wireless indoor localization networks. Existing works provide range-based localization using ultra-wideband technology, focusing on reducing the inaccuracy in range estimation due to clock offsets between different devices. This is generally achieved via signal message exchange between devices, which can lead to network congestion when the number of users is large. To address the problem of range estimation with limited signal messages, this paper proposes multiple simultaneous ranging methods based on a property of time difference of reception of two packets transmitted from different sources in impulse-radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) networks. The proposed method maintains similar robustness to the clock offsets while significantly reducing the air time occupancy when compared with the best existing ranging methods. Experimental evaluation of ranging in a line-of-sight environment shows that the proposed method enables accurate ranging with minimal air time occupancy.