Dissertation on the "Scalability, Reliability and Energy Efficiency in Ultra-Wideband Indoor Localization" successfully defended

The CNI team is happy to annouce its newest completed dissertation and congratulates Janis Tiemann to his execllent research results, which have created already a considerable impact in the research community. Recent developments in wireless localization highlight the potential that comes with this new dimension in wireless communication. While outdoor environments are mostly covered by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), precise indoor localization is still a challenge. Both, research and industry have great interest in the added value that precise indoor location information can bring to future Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems. This dissertation analyzes the requirements for those applications 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 dissertation, 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, the dissertation of Janis Tiemann 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 (RTLS). The proposed channel access 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.