A Bidirectional Object Tracking and Navigation System using a True-Range Multilateration Method

In the past, several contributions and proposals for the implementation of Ultra-wideband (UWB)-based localization and positioning solutions on the system level were made. However, most of them are limited to a unidirectional approach, i.e. data communication is in one direction (from a transmitter to a receiver). This restricts the systems' use-case to either navigation or tracking. In this paper, we demonstrate an UWB-based bidirectional localization system which is capable of acting as both a navigation and tracking system in a single wireless platform. Regarding this, we proposed a complete set of such a system and outline the implementation process in the paper. A true-range multilateration method is used as a positioning algorithm in the implemented system, for which we proposed a novel Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) mitigation technique. The experimental evaluation of the proposed system was done in comparison with a commercially available UWB system. In the experiments, we used a Vicon camera system as a reference.