Experimental Investigation of 3-D Human Body Localization Using Wearable Ultra-Wideband Antennas

This paper presents experimental investigations and analysis of ultra-wideband localization of body-worn antennas in an indoor environment. Three-dimensional (3-D) tracking of wearable antennas placed on the upper human body is achieved using a compact and cost-effective antenna and time of arrival (TOA) localization techniques. Various features such as rms delay spread, kurtosis, and signal amplitude have been used to classify the channel type between each antenna location and base station. Non-line-of-sight identification and mitigation techniques have been used to enhance the accuracy of the localization technique applied. Geometric dilution of precision of the base-station configuration and numerical analysis on the radiation patterns for different locations of the body-worn antenna has been studied in terms of variation in localization accuracy. High-accuracy 3-D localization results in the range of 1–2 cm are obtained with the antennas placed on the limbs and 1–3 cm for the torso region. The accuracy achieved is 3 times better than commercially available UWB localization and tracking systems. The significantly high-accuracy results obtained for all antenna locations demonstrate the reliability and suitability of UWB technology for various indoor tracking and localization applications in the fields of healthcare, sports, and well-being.