Right now, for precise indoor positioning you typically need an expensive optical motion capture rig like a Vicon. This Kickstarter project promises to do the same thing with ultrawideband wireless for much less ($500). It's already made its $30,000 goal and has four more days to run.
Pozyx is the first affordable and easy-to-use hardware solution that provides accurate indoor (and outdoor) positioning and motion information for Arduino. In order to achieve a positioning accuracy of a few centimeters, the pozyx system relies on a novel wireless radio technology called ultra-wideband (UWB). The accuracy achieved with this ultra-wideband technology is several times better than traditional positioning systems based on WiFi, bluetooth, RFID or GPS signals. Furthermore, the signals can penetrate walls and make it suitable for indoor environments.
Pozyx is many times more accurate than today's positioning technologies.
Results from a live test of the Pozyx system. The blue line accurately represents the trajectory of the person walking in the room. The cone indicates the orientation of that person
Key points
Pozyx is more than just positioning!
What to do with it?
The high positioning accuracy enables a lot of applications that weren’t possible before. For example, you can program a drone or robot to navigate through a building without bumping into things. But that’s just the beginning...
Possible applications for accurate positioning with Pozyx
We firmly believe that for indoor positioning to become great, we have to share the technology and make it easy to work with such that creative minds can come up with the next killer positioning application!
Depending on your skill level, you can use the system in several ways:
- Beginner: Plug the Pozyx tag into your arduino and get started right away. Obtaining your position and orientation is done with a few lines of code using our Arduino library.
- Intermediate: Use the Pozyx system as any other sensor. Connect with it through I2C. Perfect for a connection with a raspberry pie or some other platform.
- Expert: Program the microcontroller of the tags or anchors yourself and connect with all the onboard sensors for ultimate control. We provide you detailed tutorials and example files for this.
How does it work?
Our system is very similar to the GPS you have in your car. Like the GPS satellites in the sky, Pozyx requires 4 little anchors to be placed on the walls. The Pozyx board is what you will put on an Arduino to track it.
The full pozyx system (READY TO LOCALIZE reward - power cables not shown)
Positioning is achieved by making range measurements (by means of two-way ranging) with the anchors. The Pozyx tags processes all measurements to compute the position and orientation of the board, at a high update rate.
Features
- Indoor ranging and 3D positioning: Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is the key to accurate ranging and positioning. However, the UWB-module itself only provides accurate timestamps. We have implemented state-of-the art algorithms to obtain the most accurate ranging and positioning information.
- Automatic anchor calibration: 3D positioning requires at least 4 anchors to be within range (3 for 2D positioning). In general the position of these anchors must be known in advance. Pozyx provides the feature to obtain the anchor positions with a single line of code. No manual measuring required!
- Remote control: With the use of ultra-wideband wireless technology, messages can be transmitted over the air. These messages can be text or user data, but also commands to control remote pozyx modules. We made it possible to remotely turn on LEDs, toggle pins, read out sensor data, and much more. Perfect for your home automation project!
- 9-axis sensor fusion: Pozyx is equipped with an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. With these sensors it is possible to obtain the orientation of the device. However, separately these sensors all have their flaws. For example, the accelerometer is noisy and the gyroscope is biased. Together these flaws can be mitigated. Pozyx offers 9-axis sensor fusion (3 axes for every sensor) to get the best possible measurements.
- Reprogrammable: By default, we program the board with our firmware for localization and tracking. However, it is possible to reprogram the microcontroller to suit your own needs. Using the debug pins (SWD), you can load your custom code on the microcontroller of the board. We provide you with detailed tutorials and example files that take care of all the configuration: gpio pins, leds, clocks, and all the sensors (through SPI or I2C).
Technical specs
Technical specs of the arduino-compatible board
- dimensions: 71.75 x 58.00 mm
- powerful STM32F401 microcontroller
- ultra-wideband transceiver (decawave DWM1000)
- 9-axis inertial motion unit (invensense MPU9250)
- pressure sensor (freescale MPL3115A2)
- I2C for serial communication
- SWD for programming
- micro USB for firmware updates
- 4 general purpose LEDS
- 2 LEDs for UWB connectivity
- 4 optional GPIO pins
- Onboard 3.3V regulator: automatic power selection from battery, arduino or usb.
Image of the pozyx tag mounted on an Arduino Uno. (the final version that you will receive will include an usb connection and a pressure sensor not seen here)
The anchors have similar specs as the tags without the motion unit because the anchors are considered to be stationary. The anchors come in a protective casing of dimensions 63.50 x 63.50 x 22.86 mm and together with a micro USB power adapter.
Where we're at
In terms of hardware, we are nearly finished. We have come from a partial breadboard implementation of our system to the working prototype. Currently, we are finishing an improved version that also includes the pressure sensor and an usb output for firmware updates.
In terms of software, the core features such as positioning, anchor calibration and sensor fusion are finished. However, we still need to polish things and finish the Arduino library. This will be performed during the campaign and during the production of the modules
Why we need your help
Pozyx isn’t a consumer product (yet). It’s a working prototype to show that accurate indoor positioning works! We don’t want to keep it on our shelves. We believe that with kickstarter, we can reach a lot of creative people that can use our positioning system to create the most wonderful applications!
Furthermore, with kickstarter we can:
- reduce production cost by producing in higher volumes.
- get feedback while we are finishing our product and writing the Arduino libraries.
Who are we?
Pozyx started with Samuel Van de Velde who has been doing research on indoor positioning for almost 5 years at Ghent university. Because their was no affordable or simple positioning platform available to test his algorithms or applications, he decided to make one. Once the ultra-wideband technology was available, Vadim Vermeiren and Koen Verheyen joined to make the first prototype. After that Michael Van de Velde joined for some serious marketing action.
The Pozyx team: Samuel, Vadim, Koen and Michael
Comments
I have a drone which uses Pixhawk as its flight controller. How do I combine Pozyx with my drone?
@Sergey: They've stopped responding to emails (I've been trying for two months). They claim they're working on firmware updates, but so far no evidence that they're capable of running a real company.
I've got a Pozyx but sadly it doesn't work yet. The team is being slow with software fixes. Avoid for now.
Has anybody tried the Pozyx? Which is the update rate?
The company I work for (Robotic Systems) used this technology early June last year to create an interactive Drone display for the VIVID light festival in Sydney. See Case study here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2q6TTnoPKO0Tll4Z1BpS09TWm8/view?u...
I'd love to see where this tech is now and whether any Pixhawk integration has begun?
Wireless USB, based on the WiMedia PHY, is an ultrawideband radio setup. There was a push to have ranging capabilities built in to the protocol spec, but that ultimately got dropped (left as a vendor option, but most vendors didn't implement it in their final silicon). If I remember correctly, some ZigBee modules have vendor specific ranging capability.
I'm left to wonder how well this UWB solution to internal navigation will coexist with anyone using WiMedia UWB hardware? UWB is fairly resistant to interference by design in theory, but the only serious attempt to put out UWB silicon for consumer applications was wireless USB, and it was a flop.
Our team start to work 2 years ago on this kind of technology ... we are working at Europear Research progect FP7 this is the link : http://eiger.eclexys.com/node/3
The technology promising great features but actually there are a lot of limits on it ... in our desing we mix UWB and GNSS technology so will be possibile mix outdoor and indoor enviroment and our VRBrain autopilot and all other APM based flight control could be used it in indoor and outdoor enviroment.
best
Roberto
Here's the model they are using http://www.decawave.com/products/dwm1000-module
It would be interesting to know what area that can be covered is, since UWB applications are very low power (there lots of hoopla about problems with interference to other users to the radio spectrum)
Oooof that's nice tech. Take my money already.
Hi MXS,
I really think that is more of an Apples and Oranges comparison.
This multi transceiver technology enables some really cool applications, but it doesn't actually much affect most uses for Optical flow or other vision or sensor based technologies.
It only lets you determine the vehicles position relative to a fixed set of transceivers.
Optical flow can be used anywhere without requiring external devices with resolution and accuracy limited by the characteristics of the surfaces it is flying over.
PX4Flow is actually quite remarkable for it's ability to remain stationary and even for its ability to return to a previous location.
And more advanced 3D vision or Lidar type devices can let you avoid objects, find paths, produce maps and image the area around you in a number of different formats.
They can actually respond to the objects, barriers and paths in your environment which this cannot.
With this you would have to pre-map the positions of any objects or barriers and know exactly where all stationary transceivers are.
I think this technology would have excellent application in the film industry for "dollyed" multi-take shots.
You could establish precise repeatable control over a multicopter and that is a real asset for commercial filming.
Possibly also for mapping and 3D geomapping because of the precise feedback available.
Best regards,
Gary
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