High-Accuracy UWB Positioning System for Mine Tunnels: Optimization of Positioning Algorithm for Quasi-One-Dimensional Environments

The Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology boasts notable attributes, including robust signal penetration capabilities, exceptional resistance to interference, precision in positioning, and admirable signal stability. These attributes render UWB particularly well-suited for high-speed wireless access within indoor environments. Nevertheless, the intricate nature of indoor settings poses an ongoing challenge for achieving precise positioning. Traditional trilateration-based positioning methods excel in vast, unobstructed indoor spaces but yield suboptimal results in confined, elongated areas such as underground mine tunnels. This paper proposes a positioning algorithm founded on two-point ranging for this kind of quasi-one-dimensional indoor space whose length-to-width ratio is enormous. And we use the Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) method for outlier elimination to mitigate location inaccuracies. The presented algorithm addresses the challenges associated with intricate hardware deployment and substantial Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) errors prevalent in the conventional method. Systematic experiments were undertaken to methodically assess the performance of the positioning system.