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Communication, localisation and sensing with UWB: technology, applications and ecosystem

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Tuesday 5 December 2023, 12h00-19h00
@ imec, Leuven

This workshops builds upon our very popular and successful Ultra-WideBand (UWB) event in November last year, where we presented and demonstrated innovative UWB technologies for wireless communication, accurate positioning and advanced sensing.

Thanks to the cm-level ranging accuracy, UWB is one of the fastest-growing technologies adopted in Real-Time Localization Systems (RTLS), with applications in logistics, secure access control, navigation, human-robot interaction, etc

UWB technology is also recognised for its very powerful sensing capabilities (“radar sensing”) that enable human presence detection (including unobtrusive vital sign monitoring), crowd estimation, activity detection, fall detection, etc

And lastly, UWB also supports high data-rate (> Gbps) wireless connectivity at short distances, with very low energy consumption.

In this workshop, experts from academia and industry will

  • give a general overview of the current UWB ecosystem
  • present the latest technology innovations for UWB-based communication, localisation and sensing
  • compare UWB and BLE for accurate ranging and localisation
  • present new research directions for powerful localisation and sensing in challenging conditions
  • present and demonstrate applications of UWB-technology (in products of local companies)

PROGRAMME


12h00 Registration & Sandwich lunch
13h00 Introduction
Kris Hermus, Coordinator Wireless Community & Innovation Program Manager Flanders, imec
13h20 The UWB ecosystem for communication, localisation and sensing
Peng Zhang, Program Manager, imec-NL @ Holst Centre
13h50 Powerful sensing (of vital signs) with multiple UWB radars
Sofie Pollin, Professor, KU Leuven-ESAT and Principal Scientist, imec

Vital sign sensing has been shown to be feasible using Wi-Fi sensing systems. Multiperson vital sign sensing and localisation however remain challenging. In this presentation, we present some use cases for multiperson vital sign sensing and localisation. We map them to possible sensing topologies and technologies.
14h15 Comparing UWB and BLE for accurate ranging and localisation
Peng Zhang, Program Manager, imec-NL @ Holst Centre
14h35 COFFEE BREAK
15h10 GUIDED DEMO TOUR
 
  • Demo 1 – RTLOC: UWB in sports : practical insights on deploying Ultra-Wideband technology in sports analytics.
  • Demo 2 – imec-IDLab-UGent: single-anchor localisation and vital sign monitoring using UWB
  • Demo 3 – Flanders Make:  Listen and locate, UWB listener locating itself
  • Demo 4 – Agilica: Autonomous drone landing on moving platforms, based on UWB positioning
  • Demo 5 – Pozyx: large-scale animal tracking with UWB
  • Demo 6 – Qorvo: UWB in the Smart Home, Point & Control your Matter devices
15h55 Multi-antenna systems for joint distance and AOA estimation: opportunities and challenges
Jo Verhaevert, Professor, imec-IDLab-UGent

In this talk the opportunities and challenges in designing and realizing multi-antenna systems for joint distance and angle-of-arrival estimation are discussed. By using our modular system-oriented full-wave framework, the antenna system is co-designed and optimized for minimal pulse distortion in the time domain in a fast and time-efficient way, thereby integrating all platform effects. Different robust hemispherical and omnidirectional antenna arrays in a compact footprint are discussed, keeping radiation characteristics stable after deployment on challenging platforms.
16h10 Promising use cases of UWB in railway and healthcare
Pieter Crombez, Product and Innovation Manager – Research Lead, Televic Healthcare
  Robust IMU-based mitigation of human body shadowing in UWB indoor positioning
David Plets, Professor, imec-WAVES-UGent

Ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor positioning systems have the potential to achieve sub-decimeter-level accuracy. However, the ranging performance degrades significantly under Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) conditions. Detection and mitigation of NLoS conditions is a complex problem, and has been the subject of many works over the past decades. When localizing humans, human body shadowing (HBS) is a particular and specific cause of NLoS. This work presents an HBS mitigation strategy based on the orientation of the body and tag relative to the UWB anchors. The HBS mitigation strategy involves a robust range error model, interacting with a tracking algorithm. The model consists of a bank of Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs), from which an appropriate GMM is selected based on the relative body-tag-anchor orientation. The relative orientation is estimated by means of an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) attached to the tag, and a candidate position provided by the tracking algorithm. The selected GMM is used as likelihood function for the tracking algorithm to improve localization accuracy. The implemented algorithms are validated on dynamic UWB ranging measurements in an industrial lab environment, achieving a 37% reduction of the p75 error.
16h40 Can we make UWB localisation and radar sensing more accurate with AI?
Eli De Poorter, Professor, imec-IDLab-UGent
17h00 Plenary Q&A session
17h20 Networking reception
19h00 End of the workshop


REGISTRATION

Registration-fees:

  • Imec employees and residents: free of charge
  • Employees of Wireless Community members: free of charge
  • User group members of COLOSENS project: free of charge
  • Others:
    • 80 EUR (excl VAT) early bird until November 28
    • 100 EUR (excl VAT) late registration from November 29

Please fill in your details in this Event Registration Form below and you will be automatically registered.
A few days prior to the event you will receive a confirmation email with all practical details.

Please contact us at wireless-community@imec.be for any question or remark.