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Review
. 2016 May 16;16(5):707.
doi: 10.3390/s16050707.

Ultra Wideband Indoor Positioning Technologies: Analysis and Recent Advances

Abdulrahman Alarifi  1 , AbdulMalik Al-Salman  2 , Mansour Alsaleh  3 , Ahmad Alnafessah  4 , Suheer Al-Hadhrami  5 , Mai A Al-Ammar  6 , Hend S Al-Khalifa  7
Affiliations
Review

Ultra Wideband Indoor Positioning Technologies: Analysis and Recent Advances

Abdulrahman Alarifi et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

In recent years, indoor positioning has emerged as a critical function in many end-user applications; including military, civilian, disaster relief and peacekeeping missions. In comparison with outdoor environments, sensing location information in indoor environments requires a higher precision and is a more challenging task in part because various objects reflect and disperse signals. Ultra WideBand (UWB) is an emerging technology in the field of indoor positioning that has shown better performance compared to others. In order to set the stage for this work, we provide a survey of the state-of-the-art technologies in indoor positioning, followed by a detailed comparative analysis of UWB positioning technologies. We also provide an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) to analyze the present state of UWB positioning technologies. While SWOT is not a quantitative approach, it helps in assessing the real status and in revealing the potential of UWB positioning to effectively address the indoor positioning problem. Unlike previous studies, this paper presents new taxonomies, reviews some major recent advances, and argues for further exploration by the research community of this challenging problem space.

Keywords: SWOT; UWB; Ultra Wideband; indoor positioning; localization; positioning; wearable computing; wireless sensor networks.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Positioning using reference points.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Line-of-sight (LOS) vs. (b) non-line-of-sight (NLOS).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Classification of indoor positioning technologies.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Angle of arrival (AOA)-based algorithms.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Time of arrival (ToA)-based algorithms.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Time difference of arrival (TDoA)-based algorithms.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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