On the Performance of IEEE 802.15.4z-Compliant Ultra-Wideband Devices

Since the introduction of the IEEE 802.15.4z standard, several new-generation ultra-wideband platforms have been marketed, such as the Apple U1, the NXP Trimension, and the Qorvo DW3000. However, in the last decade, most of the experimental research focusing on communication performance has been carried out on the old Decawave DW1000 platform, which follows the IEEE 802.15.4a specifications and does not offer the security enhancements introduced by the latest standard. In this paper, we perform the first in-depth experimental study on the communication performance of an IEEE 802.15.4z-compliant platform based on the Qorvo DW3000. Among others, we explore the impact of various physical layer settings and security features, and further analyze the reliability of packet transmissions as well as the success probability of secure ToA estimations in absence and in presence of Wi-Fi 6E traffic.