Triangulation with RF Transmitters

[Honeydipper]

Hello,

I am looking for help on designing or integrating an electronic distance measuring device. I am trying to determine the (x,y,) and perhaps (x,y,z) locations using transmitters at known locations to a diagram and moving a receiver device over the area or volume. Triangulation would be applied and would like less than 0.5 foot accuracy. The smaller the transmitters the better and battery operation would be great.

Also if you know of any products out there that do this please let me know.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Comcokid]

Zigbee, or 802.15.4 with applications people have written can do location within about 6 feet. Freescale was going to combine this with a UWB transmitter to take the accuracy down to within a foot or so. These efforts were being driven by a DOD or DARPA need for long-distance RFID and tracking for inventory purposes (think of the final scene in Radiers of the Lost Ark ) - the goverment has lots in warehouses that it can't find.

I don't know where the Freescale effort ended-up, but other companies may be developing similar devices.

Some of the previous threads on this topic:

thread236-176230
thread248-174728
thread236-132937

 

[biff44]

I have a lot of experience with this sort of system. Post on this forum and we can discuss further:

http://www.edaboard.com/forum63.html

 

[Higgler]

I just bought a Bosch laser range finder for $120 with 1/16th inch accuracy up to around 100 meters. Could you use that if you have line of sight capability.

RF has alot of multipath and 0.5 foot accuracy is 500 picoseconds time measurement. Tough to do.

Differential GPS used by surveyors can do what you need if you are outdoors, it's extremely accurate, 0.01 inches (guestimate).

kch