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Radio Frequency (RF) Time-of-Flight Ranging for Wireless Sensor Networks

Radio Frequency (RF) Time-of-Flight Ranging for Wireless Sensor Networks
Radio Frequency (RF) Time-of-Flight Ranging for Wireless Sensor Networks
Position information of nodes within Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is often a requirement in order to make use of the data recorded by the sensors themselves. On deployment the nodes normally have no prior knowledge of their position and thus a locationing mechanism is required to determine their positions. In this paper, we describe a method to determine the point-to-point range between sensor nodes as part of the locationing process. A two-way Time-of-Flight (TOF) ranging scheme is presented using narrow-band RF. The frequency difference between the transceivers involved with the point-to-point measurement is used to obtain a sub-clock TOF phase offset measurement in order to achieve high resolution TOF measurements. The ranging algorithm has been developed and prototyped on a TI CC2430 development kit with no additional hardware being required. Performance results have been obtained for the line-of-sight (LOS), non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and indoor condition. Accuracy is typically better than 7.0m RMS for the LOS condition over 250.0m and 15.8m RMS for the NLOS condition over 120.0m using a one-hundred sample average. Indoor accuracy is measured to 1.7m RMS using a 1000 sample average over 8.0m. Ranging error is linear and does not increase with increased transmitter-receiver distance. Our TOA ranging scheme demonstrates a novel system where resolution and accuracy are time dependent in comparison to alternative frequency dependent methods using narrowband RF.
0957-0233
1-12
Thorbjornsen, Bjorn
a9f035ee-bad5-4032-9647-ea2fcd3a142a
White, Neil
c7be4c26-e419-4e5c-9420-09fc02e2ac9c
Brown, Andrew
5c19e523-65ec-499b-9e7c-91522017d7e0
Reeve, Jeff
dd909010-7d44-44ea-83fe-a09e4d492618
Thorbjornsen, Bjorn
a9f035ee-bad5-4032-9647-ea2fcd3a142a
White, Neil
c7be4c26-e419-4e5c-9420-09fc02e2ac9c
Brown, Andrew
5c19e523-65ec-499b-9e7c-91522017d7e0
Reeve, Jeff
dd909010-7d44-44ea-83fe-a09e4d492618

Thorbjornsen, Bjorn, White, Neil, Brown, Andrew and Reeve, Jeff (2010) Radio Frequency (RF) Time-of-Flight Ranging for Wireless Sensor Networks. Measurement Science and Technology, 21 (3), 1-12.

Record type: Article

Abstract

Position information of nodes within Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is often a requirement in order to make use of the data recorded by the sensors themselves. On deployment the nodes normally have no prior knowledge of their position and thus a locationing mechanism is required to determine their positions. In this paper, we describe a method to determine the point-to-point range between sensor nodes as part of the locationing process. A two-way Time-of-Flight (TOF) ranging scheme is presented using narrow-band RF. The frequency difference between the transceivers involved with the point-to-point measurement is used to obtain a sub-clock TOF phase offset measurement in order to achieve high resolution TOF measurements. The ranging algorithm has been developed and prototyped on a TI CC2430 development kit with no additional hardware being required. Performance results have been obtained for the line-of-sight (LOS), non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and indoor condition. Accuracy is typically better than 7.0m RMS for the LOS condition over 250.0m and 15.8m RMS for the NLOS condition over 120.0m using a one-hundred sample average. Indoor accuracy is measured to 1.7m RMS using a 1000 sample average over 8.0m. Ranging error is linear and does not increase with increased transmitter-receiver distance. Our TOA ranging scheme demonstrates a novel system where resolution and accuracy are time dependent in comparison to alternative frequency dependent methods using narrowband RF.

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rf_time-of-flight_ranging.pdf - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Published date: March 2010
Organisations: EEE

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 268352
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/268352
ISSN: 0957-0233
PURE UUID: a000f81b-07ac-42d6-884c-6ae6fb4057d7
ORCID for Neil White: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1532-6452

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Date deposited: 05 Jan 2010 11:20
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:41

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Contributors

Author: Bjorn Thorbjornsen
Author: Neil White ORCID iD
Author: Andrew Brown
Author: Jeff Reeve

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