Relative Position Estimation Between Two UWB Devices with IMUs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a real-time algorithm for estimating the 3D relative position between two mobile robots using only UWB transceivers and inertial sensors, achieving under 1 meter accuracy in experiments.

Contribution

It presents a novel sliding window filter that combines UWB and inertial measurements for accurate relative positioning of robots.

Findings

Achieves less than 1 meter positioning accuracy.

Outperforms standard estimators in simulation and experiments.

Suitable for real-time multi-robot applications.

Abstract

For a team of robots to work collaboratively, it is crucial that each robot have the ability to determine the position of their neighbors, relative to themselves, in order to execute tasks autonomously. This letter presents an algorithm for determining the three-dimensional relative position between two mobile robots, each using nothing more than a single ultra-wideband transceiver, an accelerometer, a rate gyro, and a magnetometer. A sliding window filter estimates the relative position at selected keypoints by combining the distance measurements with acceleration estimates, which each agent computes using an on-board attitude estimator. The algorithm is appropriate for real-time implementation, and has been tested in simulation and experiment, where it comfortably outperforms standard estimators. A positioning accuracy of less than 1 meter is achieved with inexpensive sensors.