SBIR Phase I: Active Radar Multi-Path Mapping for High-Precision Ranging Applications

SBIR 第一阶段：用于高精度测距应用的主动雷达多路径测绘

• 批准号: 1416098
• 负责人: Thomas Schmid
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Greina Technologies
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-07-01 至 2014-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1416098&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Active; Radar; Multi

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project derives from the fact that modern Real Time Location Service (RTLS) systems offer the potential to improve the efficiency of warehouses, offices, and hospitals, and to increase the safety of first responders during an emergency. The high-precision radio frequency (RF) ranging technology to be developed in this project is expected to enable new application areas that are out-of-reach with current RTLS systems. The proposed technology is expected to provide an accuracy improvement of three orders of magnitude over current state-of-the-art systems using low-cost of-the-shelf components, while also mitigating common technical problems with RF systems (such as poor performance due to multi-path RF reflections). If successfully developed, the proposed technology could enable the use of high-precision RF ranging for motion tracking, accurate indoor localization, robotics, high-value asset tracking, perimeter security, and accurate first-responder person tracking. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project investigates algorithms to mitigate multi-path issues in a novel RF-based RTLS system. RTLS systems rely on robust range estimates between participating nodes. Multi-path reflections are the most significant source of error for these ranging estimates, and reducing their effect has in the past proven difficult. Recent developments in narrow-band 2.4 GHz radios allow millimeter-accurate ranging techniques based on carrier-phase measurements, similar to differential GPS systems. External interference can be minimized by using the phase information of pure carrier tones, and "packetizing" the range measurements by hopping over multiple discrete frequencies. Adding an antenna array and fast switching between the antennas adds further capabilities, as the different antenna phase measurements can be combined into a steerable virtual antenna. This is similar to active radar systems, except that it is done using low-cost of-the-shelf components. By using distance information and virtual antenna angle combined with the different multi-path components, the proposed system is able to map RF reflecting objects, allowing higher-level algorithms to accurately pinpoint the location of a device in a room. The proposed technology offers a potential accuracy improvement of three orders of magnitude over existing methods.

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力源于现代实时定位服务（RTLS）系统提供了提高仓库、办公室和医院效率的潜力，并在紧急情况下提高了第一响应者的安全性。在该项目中开发的高精度射频（RF）测距技术有望实现当前RTLS系统无法达到的新应用领域。与目前使用低成本的现成组件的最先进系统相比，拟议的技术预计将提供三个数量级的精度改进，同时还可以减轻射频系统的常见技术问题（例如由于多路径射频反射而导致的性能差）。如果开发成功，该技术可以实现高精度射频测距，用于运动跟踪、精确的室内定位、机器人、高价值资产跟踪、周边安全以及准确的第一响应者跟踪。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目研究了一种新型基于射频的RTLS系统中缓解多路径问题的算法。RTLS系统依赖于参与节点之间的鲁棒距离估计。多路径反射是这些距离估计最重要的误差来源，过去证明很难减小它们的影响。窄带2.4 GHz无线电的最新发展允许基于载波相位测量的毫米级精确测距技术，类似于差分GPS系统。外部干扰可以通过使用纯载波的相位信息来最小化，并通过在多个离散频率上跳跃来“封装”距离测量。增加天线阵列和天线之间的快速切换增加了进一步的功能，因为不同的天线相位测量可以组合成一个可操纵的虚拟天线。这类似于主动雷达系统，除了它是使用低成本的现成组件。通过使用距离信息和虚拟天线角度与不同的多路径组件相结合，所提出的系统能够映射射频反射物体，允许更高级别的算法精确定位房间中设备的位置。提出的技术提供了一个潜在的精度提高三个数量级比现有的方法。