Experimental Study of UWB Connectivity in Industrial Environments

Conference: European Wireless 2018 - 24th European Wireless Conference
05/02/2018 - 05/04/2018 at Catania, Italy

Proceedings: European Wireless 2018

Pages: 4Language: englishTyp: PDF

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Authors:
Schmidt, Jorge F.; Bettstetter, Christian (Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems, University of Klagenfurt, Austria & Lakeside Labs GmbH, Klagenfurt, Austria)
Neuhold, Daniel (Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems, University of Klagenfurt, Austria)
Klaue, Jirka (Airbus, Hamburg, Germany)
Schupke, Dominic (Airbus, Munich, Germany)

Abstract:
Experimental results on the connectivity of IEEE 802.15.4-2011 ultra-wideband (UWB) devices are presented in two industrial scenarios: a large-size aircraft assembly hangar and a medium-size production hall. These measurements are the first ones reported for off-the-shelf UWB devices in such setting and shed light on the potential of UWB to support emerging industrial applications. By comparing the packet loss rate to well-established ZigBee devices, we show that UWB can largely reduce the need of relay nodes, contributing to a lower end-to-end latency. We argue that this, together with inherent features that are not easy to replicate by other physical layers, position UWB as a promising industrial communications technology.