Integrated Communication and Localization Design Based on UWB Technology for Underground Substations

• Main Authors: Sun, Boyang, Huang, Ruanming, Xia, Yanfeng, Shao, Zhixuan, Shen, Zhipeng, Luo, Chenhao, Tang, Aimin
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Base stations; double-sided two-way ranging; Estimation; Global navigation satellite system; joint localization; Location awareness; phase difference of arrival; Substations; Systems architecture; Ultra wideband; Ultra wideband communication; underground substation management
• ISSN: 2768-6515
• DOI: 10.1109/ICET58434.2023.10211552

Localization of people and machine is important for underground substations. However, conventional global navigation satellite system (GNSS) cannot work in such situation. Other localization technologies such as WiFi and RFID perform poorly in underground substations due to the influence of the environment, e.g. the blockage of walls, the congestion of space, and the complexity of environment. Moreover, an additional communication system is also required to collect the localization information from the deployed localization anchors, which leads to more cost. To solve the localization problem in underground substations, an integrated communication and localization design based on UWB technology is proposed in this paper. First, the integrated system architecture for both communication networking and localization is developed. The system structure consists of UWB communication base stations, a UWB communication gateway, target tags, and a local server. More specifically, mesh networking is adopted between UWB base stations for the sake of easy routing and network setup. Second, a single-anchor based Localization scheme is developed, where the double-sided two-way-ranging (DS-TWR) scheme is adopted for range estimation and phase difference of arrival (PDOA) algorithm is developed to estimate the angle of arrival (AoA). Moreover, by collecting the information from other anchors via the networking function, a joint localization scheme can further improve the localization accuracy. The proposed scheme is implemented and the localization anchor with three UWB modules for AoA estimation is designed. Experimental results show that the system can accurately estimate the location of the target with an average error 12 cm, satisfying the localization requirements in underground substations.