ZIM HATOX - Funkfernsteuerung

The goal of the project "HATOX" is to develop a new type of radio remote control system based on ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. The core components of the system are special, newly developed radio nodes, which are equipped with an UWB transceiver. By performing mutual time of flight (ToF) measurements between stationary and mobile radio nodes, the unknown position of individual system’s participants can be determined. For such use cases, UWB technology offers a high ToF measurement accuracy and favorable properties in scenarios with coexistence of other radio traffic.

The system should use an approach of "collaborative localization" based on Three-Message Double-Sided Two-Way Ranging, whereby "collaborative localization" represents an extension of the "cooperative localization". Cooperative localization is realized by allowing special nodes, so-called host tags, to self-locate mobile objects. The position information obtained in this way can be used to locate other nodes. Furthermore, cooperative localization is extended by machine learning methods. By utilizing special features of the UWB signals, it should be possible for a model to learn the characteristical error behavior of the UWB measurements as precisely as possible. This is to account for the fact that the quality of radio measurements is strongly influenced by environment-dependent factors. Using static error models is often not sufficient. By using AI-based methods to detect and correct measurement errors, this problem is to be counteracted and allows to reliably operate the system in different deployment environments.

Procedures like collaborative localization and AI-supported correction of errors allow to determine positions of mobile nodes even in cases where conventional approaches fail. Furthermore, they increase the robustness and reliability such as the accuracy of the overall system. This enables to create a system with a larger area coverage or using less hardware while covering the same area compared to conventional systems. Using a modular approach in the development of the radio nodes, it is intended to allow an application-specific integration of additional sensors (e.g., inertial sensors). Also, special designs of radio nodes equipped with PLC functions are possible.

The localization system’s primary use cases are the localization of highly specialized machines, vehicles and/or industrial remote controls. For this purpose, the radio nodes are attached to or integrated into the corresponding devices. This also allows questions relating to personal or operator safety to be addressed. Upon project completion, a cost-effective and adaptive real-time radio localization system with reduced installation and administration costs and high localization accuracy should be available.

 Förderkennzeichen: KK5119001BD0

• Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand (ZIM)

• Hatox GmbH(Opens in a new tab) 
• Institut für die Digitalisierung von Arbeits- und Lebenswelten (IDiAL)