Wideband Acoustic Positioning With Precision Calibration and Joint Parameter Estimation.

This paper presents an instrument for finding the location of an object in 3-D space. The location is determined using estimates of the object’s distance from static anchor points with known coordinates. This process involves three main challenges: 1) a way of measuring the Euclidean distance between two points; 2) estimating system parameters such as the position of the anchor points, the speed of sound, and data acquisition delay; and 3) computing the position of the object from its distance to the anchor points. This paper addresses each of these challenges. A wideband acoustic signal is used for distance estimation. Nonlinear regression techniques are used to estimate the positions of the anchors and jointly optimize other system parameters. After calibration, a similar method is also used, this time using the optimized parameter set, to estimate the position of the target object. The design and performance of a prototype system, based on the proposed method, are discussed. The prototype, using five anchors and 13 reference locations, achieved a mean positioning accuracy of 0.86 mm over a test volume spanning 0.5 m $\times0.5$ m $\times0.25$ m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]