Scalable and precise multi-UAV indoor navigation using TDOA-based UWB localization

Ultra-wideband wireless positioning technologies based on IEEE 802.15.4a have gained attention for various use cases requiring highly precise localization. Multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems provide several sensors for stabilization and navigation. However, absolute indoor positioning poses a problem for autonomous robotic systems. The specific challenge addressed in this paper is enabling novel applications with autonomous UAV systems through tight integration with scalable and precise receiver-side time-difference of arrival (TDOA) based ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor localization. For the in-depth validation of the proposed approach, several experiments are performed. One proves the repeatability of the proposed method by following a predefined trajectory ten times achieving close to optical motion-capture based control performance, with a 3rd quartile of the alignment error lower than 10 cm. Another experiment addresses the simultaneous flight of three UAVs in close proximity and delivers an analysis of the real-time capabilities which in turn proves the multi-user scalability. The last experiment demonstrates a user-interactive application of the proposed approach in a logistics environment. A video along with the raw samples, reference data and processed positions of the aforementioned experiments is provided alongside this work.