Scalability, Reliability and Energy Efficiency in Ultra-Wideband Indoor Localization

This thesis analyzes the requirements for the future of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and provides deep insight into the solution space of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) communication technology, by analyzing the accuracy, energy efficiency and, as a specific focus of this thesis, the multi-user scalability of existing systems. The comparison with the state of the art shows the need for a new solution, providing both, scalable real-time capabilities and energy-efficiency.

Given these requirements, this thesis proposes the Augmented Terrestrial Localization for Autonomous Systems (ATLAS) solution approach specifically targeted to improve the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for control-grade Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLSs). The proposed energy-efficient ATLAS Fast and simple Scheduled Time-difference of arrival (FaST) scheme providing scalable, real-time capable and reliable localization for heterogeneous applications is specified, implemented and validated. Furthermore, approaches for ultra-wideband specific signal quality assessment and sensor fusion to improve location accuracy are discussed, implemented and evaluated. It is shown, that the proposed approaches are capable of outperforming existing solutions in many domains. Open-source contributions, extensive experimental evaluation and participation in international competitions underline the impact of the achieved results.