Inertial and time-of-arrival ranging sensor fusion

Enhancing Autonomous Truck Navigation with Ultra-Wideband Technology in Industrial Environments

The integration of autonomous vehicles in industrial settings necessitates advanced positioning and navigation systems to ensure operational safety and efficiency. This study rigorously evaluates the application of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology in autonomous industrial trucks and compares its effectiveness with conventional systems such as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), Global Positioning System (GPS), and cameras. Through comprehensive experiments conducted in a real factory environment, this study meticulously assesses the accuracy and reliability of UWB technology across various reference distances and under diverse environmental conditions. The findings reveal that UWB technology consistently achieves positioning accuracy within 0.2 cm 99% of the time, significantly surpassing the 10 cm and 5 cm accuracies of GPS and LiDAR, respectively. The exceptional performance of UWB, especially in environments afflicted by high metallic interference and non-line-of-sight conditions-where GPS and LiDAR's efficacy decreased by 40% and 25%, respectively-highlights its potential to revolutionize the operational capabilities of autonomous trucks in industrial applications. This study underscores the robustness of UWB in maintaining high accuracy even in adverse conditions and illustrates its low power consumption and efficiency in multi-user scenarios without signal interference. This study not only confirms the superior capabilities of UWB technology but also contributes to the broader field of autonomous vehicle technology by highlighting the practical benefits and integration potential of UWB systems in complex and dynamic environments.

Accuracy Improvement of Indoor Real-Time Location Tracking Algorithm for Smart Supermarket Based on Ultra-Wideband

Collecting data like location information is an essential part of concepts like the “IoT” or “Industry 4.0”. In the case of the development of a precise localization system and an integrated navigation system, indoor location technology receives more and more attention and has become a hot research topic. Common indoor location techniques are mainly based on wireless local area network, radio frequency tag, ZigBee technology, Bluetooth technology, infrared technology and ultra-wideband (UWB). However, these techniques are vulnerable to various noise signals and indoor environments, and also the positioning accuracy is easily affected by the complicated indoor environment. We studied the problem of real-time location tracking based on UWB in an indoor environment in this paper. We have proposed a combinational filtering algorithm and an improved Two-Way Ranging (ITWR) method for indoor real-time location tracking. The simulation results prove that the real-time performance and high accuracy of the presented algorithm can improve location accuracy. The experiment shows that the combinational algorithm and ITWR method which are applied to the positioning and navigation of the smart supermarket, have achieved quiet good results in positioning accuracy. The average positioning error is less than 10[Formula: see text]cm, some of the improvements can elevate the positioning accuracy by 17.5%. UWB is a suitable method for indoor real-time location tracking and has important theoretic value and practical significance.

Trends Supporting the In-Field Use of Wearable Inertial Sensors for Sport Performance Evaluation: A Systematic Review

Recent technological developments have led to the production of inexpensive, non-invasive, miniature magneto-inertial sensors, ideal for obtaining sport performance measures during training or competition. This systematic review evaluates current evidence and the future potential of their use in sport performance evaluation. Articles published in English (April 2017) were searched in Web-of-Science, Scopus, Pubmed, and Sport-Discus databases. A keyword search of titles, abstracts and keywords which included studies using accelerometers, gyroscopes and/or magnetometers to analyse sport motor-tasks performed by athletes (excluding risk of injury, physical activity, and energy expenditure) resulted in 2040 papers. Papers and reference list screening led to the selection of 286 studies and 23 reviews. Information on sport, motor-tasks, participants, device characteristics, sensor position and fixing, experimental setting and performance indicators was extracted. The selected papers dealt with motor capacity assessment (51 papers), technique analysis (163), activity classification (19), and physical demands assessment (61). Focus was placed mainly on elite and sub-elite athletes (59%) performing their sport in-field during training (62%) and competition (7%). Measuring movement outdoors created opportunities in winter sports (8%), water sports (16%), team sports (25%), and other outdoor activities (27%). Indications on the reliability of sensor-based performance indicators are provided, together with critical considerations and future trends.