Experimental Analysis of Ranging Performance of an Automotive UWB Modules

Ultra-wide band (UWB) is a wireless technology for secured ranging and precise localization. UWB-based products provide fine ranging across automotive, mobile, and IoT devices. Each UWB development kit is designed with a specific application and use case. Basically, UWB ranging between two devices follows different topologies like Two-Way Ranging (TWR), Time Difference of Arrival (TDoA), and Phase Difference of Arrival (PDoA). For most of the IoT applications, distance can be calculated using Double-sided Two-Way Ranging (DS-TWR), whereas automotive use cases require the multilateration phenomenon using TDoA, which calculates precise distance with 3-dimensional coordinates. There are different types of UWB physical interfaces defined in the IEEE 802.15.4z standard, which gives high- & low-rate pulse repetition. Here, some experiments for Two-Way Ranging (TWR) with different UWB modules have been performed. Few devices are FiRa (Fine Ranging) compliant UWB anchors & tags for IoT applications. And for automotive sensing applications, CCC (Car Connectivity Consortium) compliant modules are used, which can act as a responder or initiator. Smartphones with the UWB feature can also be used for localization, i.e., distance calculation with supported UWB tags. Initial pairing between two devices is established using Out of Band (OOB) authentication Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), then ranging starts with UWB with the help of the Time of Flight (ToF) concept. Due to their high security, accuracy, and co-existence with other communications, UWB modules are widely used in automotive industries and home automation.