SpiderBat: Augmenting wireless sensor networks with distance and angle information

Having access to accurate position information is a key requirement for many wireless sensor network applications. We present the design, implementation and evaluation of SpiderBat, an ultrasound-based ranging platform designed to augment existing sensor nodes with distance and angle information. Sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:2011 10th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks pp. 211 - 222
Main Authors: Oberholzer, G, Sommer, P, Wattenhofer, R
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: IEEE 01.04.2011
Subjects:
Compass
Distance measurement
Localization
Microcontrollers
Multipath
Radio transmitters
Receivers
Synchronization
Time Synchronization
Ultrasonic imaging
Ultrasonic variables measurement
Ultrasound
Wireless Sensor Networks
ISBN:9781612848549, 1612848540
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Having access to accurate position information is a key requirement for many wireless sensor network applications. We present the design, implementation and evaluation of SpiderBat, an ultrasound-based ranging platform designed to augment existing sensor nodes with distance and angle information. SpiderBat features independently controllable ultrasound transmitters and receivers, in all directions of the compass. Using a digital compass, nodes can learn about their orientation, and combine this information with distance and angle measurements using ultrasound. To the best of our knowledge, SpiderBat is the first ultrasound-based sensor node platform that can measure absolute angles between sensor nodes accurately. The availability of angle information enables us to estimate node positions with a precision in the order of a few centimeters. Moreover, our system allows to position nodes in multi-hop networks where pure distance-based algorithms must fail, in particular in sparse networks, with only a single anchor node. Furthermore, information on absolute node orientations makes it possible to detect whether two nodes are in line-of-sight. Consequently, we can detect the presence of obstacles and walls by looking at patterns in the received ultrasound signal.
ISBN:9781612848549
1612848540