Ultra-wideband testbed for 6.0–8.5 GHz ranging and low data rate communication

In this paper we present ULAND® testbed that consists of two European mask compliant impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) transceivers with low data rate and medium range for data communication and distance measurement. The transmitter uses Time Hopping spread spectrum codes to reduce the peak to average ratio in the power spectral density and the receiver is based on a filter bank. The hardware/software partitioning of the receiver provides the testbed with the necessary flexibility. Therefore new ranging algorithms can be tested quickly in real time in order to improve the distance measurements. The ranging protocol performs the distance calculation with four-way exchange of the frame even when there is not a common timing reference between transceivers. The algorithms demodulate data and estimate Relative Time of Arrival (RTOA) in a Line of Sight (LOS) and Non-LOS (NLOS) framework. Finally, distance measurement results are presented showing the functionality of the testbed.