Full-Coverage 3-D Indoor Positioning System Based on a Rotating Dual-Ultra-Wideband Platform

In this work, we propose a full-coverage 3-D positioning strategy based on a novel single-anchor rotating ultra-wideband (UWB) system. Unlike traditional positioning strategies, the proposed positioning strategy uses only a single UWB base station to achieve full-coverage 3-D tag positioning within the effective communication range. This approach effectively simplifies the setup process and reduces the deployment costs of the positioning system. The designed UWB base station consists of a motor-driven rotating platform, two UWB modules with angle measurement capabilities, and a primary control unit for the system. The rotating platform provides a full 360° range of tag signal coverage, which substantially broadens the coverage compared with 120° typically offered by antennas built in traditional single base station strategies. The inclusion of two UWB modules with angle measurement capabilities can improve the accuracy of the positioning. The primary control unit of the system would manage these components to ensure smooth operations. Moreover, the tag module is equipped with a UWB transceiver that boasts an effective communication distance of 300 m, which significantly extends the coverage area. Based on the hardware design, we further propose a positioning method that incorporates a 3-D circle estimation method and the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that our designed UWB base station (anchor) can provide a full-coverage 3-D tag positioning solution and a competitive positioning accuracy performance in a practical application testbed.