Spatial Characteristics of UWB TOA-based Ranging in Indoor Multipath Environments

This paper provides the results of comprehensive measurement and modelling of time of arrival (TOA) based UWB ranging in different indoor environments and ranging scenarios. We show that ranging accuracy of UWB systems is directly related to the physical constraints of the environment and system bandwidth. In addition we show through empirical measurement and modelling that the spatial characteristics of the ranging error depend on the presence and absence of the Direct Path (DP). In the former, the spatial error follow a normal distribution, while in the latter, the error behaviour is best modelled as lognormal.