What is Ultra Wideband technology (UWB)?

What is Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology? It is an ultra accurate indoor location technology.

With UWB, the user can expect a location accuracy of 10 cm in difficult environments.

It is popular because it is more accurate and less energy consuming than WiFi or Bluetooth tracking. In other words, this technology is the most efficient and durable on the market!

It is also used in communication to exchange data very quickly over long distances.

How does it work?

Several antennas are distributed in an area where you want to locate objects.

Beacons are placed on the objects to be located. The beacons and the antennas will communicate and exchange data.

This data exchange will allow to locate the beacons in relation to the antennas. The localization is done, for example, by :

• triangulation: comparison of the communication angles between the beacons and the antennas;
• trilateration: comparison of the propagation times between the beacons and the antennas

These processes are also used for GPS (Global Positioning System).

The satellites are the antennas while the beacons are our phone, our car, etc.

UWB technology is less sensitive to multipath than conventional indoor location techniques.

The emissions between the beacons and antennas are very short.

This reduces the error in the evaluation of propagation times, reduces power consumption and allows for much faster communication.

Applications of the UWB technology

Thanks to this precision, we can envisage applications in many sectors of activity! Below are three examples of how UWB technology can be used in very different sectors :

• For example, museums would like to locate visitors to offer them content according to their position. Let’s imagine a visitor in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre museum.

He is located and the Louvre can explain the history of the painting and the painter. The visitor’s experience is multiplied tenfold!

• Another opportunity is in hospitals. Patients wander around the hospital or try to escape.

By tracking them, nurses will now be able to receive an alert when a patient is in an area they do not have permission to be in.

Patient safety is improved.,Nurses will also find the patient much faster. They will be able to concentrate on their core business.

• In the industry, traceability is essential. Manufacturers want to locate their containers and products. By knowing the position of a product at each moment, we can retrace its entire path.

In case of problem with this product, the company can then study its route and try to understand where there was a problem. Traceability is very important in the automotive, aeronautics/aerospace or pharmaceutical industries.

The three examples above show that indoor tracking offers many opportunities in various industries.

The accuracy of UWB technology can improve traceability in Industry 4.0, security in hospitals and information in museums.

But who develops these solutions?

Several companies offer solutions using UWB technology such as UbiSense, Zozio, Decawave, BlinkSight or BeSpoon. Some of them offer customized solutions but not all of them!

The factory of the future will be different for each manufacturer.

At Zozio, we propose a customized solution  because we believe that each company has a different need.

We first evaluate your needs and propose a solution that meets them. The objective is to offer you an ideal solution with a very good return on investment. We take care of everything for you!