Omni-directional person tracking on a flying robot using occlusion-robust ultra-wideband signals

Abstract

We present a tracking system based on ultra-wideband (UWB) radio tranceivers mounted on a robot and a target. In comparison to typical UWB localization systems with fixed UWB tranceivers in the environment we only require instrumentation of the target with a single UWB tranceiver. Our system works in GPS-denied environments and does not suffer from long-term drift and limited fields of view. This paper reports the localization algorithm and implementation details. Additionally, we demonstrate a quantitative evaluation of the accuracy (10cm average position error for a square with side-length of 4m) and application scenarios with a quadrotor flying in close proximity to a person and handling occlusion of the target. Finally, we release our implementation as open-source software.