In this article, the ultra-wideband technology for localization and tracking of the robot gripper (behind the obstacles) in industrial environments is presented. We explore the possibilities of ultra-wideband radar sensor network employing the centralized data fusion method that can significantly improve tracking capabilities in a complex environment. In this article, we present ultra-wideband radar sensor network hardware demonstrator that uses a new wireless ultra-wideband sensor with an embedded controller to detect and track online or off-line movement of the robot gripper. This sensor uses M-sequence ultra-wideband radars front-end and low-cost powerful processors on a system on chip with the advanced RISC machines (ARM) architecture as a main signal processing block. The ARM-based single board computer ODROID-XU4 platform used in our ultra-wideband sensor can provide processing power for the preprocessing of received raw radar signals, algorithms for detection and estimation of target’s coordinates, and finally, compression of data sent to the data fusion center. Data streams of compressed target coordinates are sent from each sensor node to the data fusion center in the central node using standard the wireless local area network (WLAN) interface that is the feature of the ODROID-XU4 platform. The article contains experimental results from measurements where sensors and antennas are located behind the wall or opaque material. Experimental testing confirmed capability of real-time performance of developed ultra-wideband radar sensor network hardware and acceptable precision of software. The introduced modular architecture of ultra-wideband radar sensor network can be used for fast development and testing of new real-time localization and tracking applications in industrial environments.

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This paper deals with the realization, measurements and testing of an integrated UWB radar head operating in the continuously transmitted stimulation signal mode. The term UWB is derived from the exploited system bandwidth. Practically, the frequency bands nearly from DC to 14 GHz or those specified by the Electronic Communication Committee (ECC) or the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations are used. The stimulation signal is generated by modulation of the carrier by a binary sequence which spreads the frequency spectrum of the signal. Thanks to the parameters of the resulting signal, it is not the source of interference for other radio services, but it can be observed only as an increase in noise. In the context of the UWB radars emitting the spread-spectrum signal, the term noise radar is often used, where the generated spreading signal is the result of generation of a pseudorandom noise modulation signal. The principle of generation of such a signal as well as the description of the transmitter is described in this article in more details. The reception of the UWB signals is not a trivial task. Hence in this paper, we deal with the topic of the UWB radar transceiver, relying on the equivalent time sampling approach, with attention to the receiver section. The measurements focused on qualitative parameters of the given UWB radar are evaluated as well, concentrating on the innovative integrated front-end. The main tested parameters include reliability across the whole frequency range, dynamic range, as well as crosstalk in the proposed structure.

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