High accuracy or low cost?

A discussion of Noccela UWB technology’s position in the location-aware IoT market.

UWB wireless technology among others is well recognized as an ultra-accurate positioning technology. But what can be done with this accuracy? Who, or what use cases need this high accuracy? When Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology does the job at an adequate 1-2 meter accuracy, wouldn’t UWB be overkill?

UWB was designed to enable precise, real-time measurement of location, distance, and direction, with two-way communication. Therefore, the technology is much more immune to obstacles that reduces signal strength, as well as those cause reflections. This means that the technology is much more suitable and easier to implement in partitioned environments and industrial environments with metallic presence. So, UWB stands out in reliable positioning at any required accuracy, and in seamless installation including in challenging environments.

Let’s talk about high accuracy. The centimeter accuracy Noccela has achieved is vastly used in sports analytics applications. This accuracy is reported to be as good as 2 cm at 60km/h moving speed. Noccela does not need additional hardware, or additional data processing attempts on top of the basic infrastructure to achieve this accuracy. This is due to Noccela’s own proprietary positioning algorithm HPR, that is run in the Noccela cloud. This technology allows Noccela to easily adapt to any accuracy required. In other words, Noccela implements positioning networks with 1-2m accuracy too, evidently with nearly half the amount of anchors as BLE technology needs.

So, high accuracy or low cost? Noccela says EITHER and BOTH.

Read more

https://www.qorvo.com/design-hub/blog/noccela-and-ultra-wideband-take-industry-and-sports-to-the-next-level

https://www.qorvo.com/innovation/ultra-wideband/technology

https://www.qorvo.com/resources/d/qorvo-getting-back-to-basics-with-ultra-wideband-uwb-white-paper