Indoor Positioning based on Active Radar Sensing and Passive Reflectors: Concepts & Initial Results

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel indoor positioning method for autonomous vehicles using active radar and passive reflectors, demonstrating feasibility through simulation and focusing on optimal reflector placement.

Contribution

It proposes a new active radar-based indoor positioning concept with passive reflectors, including placement strategies and initial simulation results showing its potential.

Findings

Feasibility of radar-based indoor positioning demonstrated

Effective reflector placement strategies identified

Simulation confirms potential accuracy and reliability

Abstract

To navigate reliably in indoor environments, an industrial autonomous vehicle must know its position. However, current indoor vehicle positioning technologies either lack accuracy, usability or are too expensive. Thus, we propose a novel concept called local reference point assisted active radar positioning, which is able to overcome these drawbacks. It is based on distributing passive retroreflectors in the indoor environment such that each position of the vehicle can be identified by a unique reflection characteristic regarding the reflectors. To observe these characteristics, the autonomous vehicle is equipped with an active radar system. On one hand, this paper presents the basic idea and concept of our new approach towards indoor vehicle positioning and especially focuses on the crucial placement of the reflectors. On the other hand, it also provides a proof of concept by conducting a full system simulation including the placement of the local reference points, the radar-based distance estimation and the comparison of two different positioning methods. It successfully demonstrates the feasibility of our proposed approach.