Effects of Antenna Orientation in Ultra Wideband Indoor Positioning System

• Published in: 2019 16th International Conference on Electrical Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology (ECTI-CON) pp. 397 - 400
• Main Authors: Chansamood, Panthip, Wisadsud, Sodsai, Maneerat, Kriangkrai, Sanpechuda, Taweesak, Chinda, Krisada, Kaemarungsi, Kamol
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.07.2019
• Subjects: 3D trilateration; antenna orientations; indoor localization systems; two way ranging; ultra wideband
• DOI: 10.1109/ECTI-CON47248.2019.8955437

This paper presents an investigation on the effect of antenna orientations to the positioning performance of Ultra wideband (UWB) real time location system. The main objective of this study is to estimate the performance degradation when tag's antenna orientation is not placed in the optimal orientation. The ranging accuracy and localization performance in the 3 dimensions (3D) positioning systems are considered. The two way ranging (TWR) method is used to determine the distance between transmitter and receiver, while the 3D trilateration algorithm is used to estimate the target location. Experimental results showed that the vertical antenna orientation of both transmitters and receivers provided the highest ranging accuracy and the highest positioning performance as recommended by the manufacturer. Specifically, the vertical antenna orientation has the average error of measured range about 0.18 meters and provides the localization error in 3D less than 0.84 meters. On the other hand, the worst performance, which caused 52.27 % more error, was when both transmitters and receivers were in horizontal orientation.