Innovative Methods for Geolocation and Communication with Ultra-Wideband Mobile Radio Networks

Geolocation in indoor and urban areas is an essential emerging technology to enhance situational/positional awareness capabilities of U.S. soldiers. Maintaining situational awareness in indoor and urban environments is difficult because buildings, walls and other obstacles obstruct RF propagation. Thus the key parameter for geolocation, the direct path propagation signal, is harder to detect. The technical challenge is to develop geolocation algorithms that overcome the direct path obstructions and integrate them into a communication network that is easily deployed, low cost, and collaboratively provides accurate location information. In Phase I, Innovative Wireless Technologies (IWT) proved that a ultra wideband (UWB) geolocation network can provide location accuracy of 1 meter for outdoor to indoor conditions. IWT's innovative UWB ranging and positioning solution is based on multi-band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) which has inherent advantages over pulse-based UWB systems. A key advantage is spectral flexibility which allows individual carriers and frequency bands to be avoided, thereby enhancing the anti-jam performance of the system. In Phase II, IWT will build upon related UWB ad-hoc network projects to implement and demonstrate the performance of the geolocation algorithms. Key position and ranging accuracy parameters will be demonstrated in a mobile environment.