Abstract:
To address the issues of frequent communication and limited concurrency in underground coal mine ultra-wideband (UWB) positioning systems using double-sided two-way ranging (DS-TWR) for one-dimensional localization, which traditionally requires two exchanges between devices to measure distance, this study proposes a rapid localization method that accomplishes network access and ranging within a single exchange. Firstly, in terms of communication mechanism, a random delay network access strategy is introduced to reduce the potential signal conflicts that may occur when multiple tag devices simultaneously request network access. At the same time, a channel sniffing function is added at the transmitter end, and the network access request is sent only when the channel is detected to be idle, rather than being sent directly as in traditional methods. This improvement can effectively avoid signal collisions when multiple devices simultaneously send network access requests, which could otherwise lead to access failure, thereby enhancing the stability of distance measurement. Further, by combining with the dual-antenna time-division multiplexing technology, the polling efficiency and processing throughput of the reader in multi-tag scenarios are significantly improved. Secondly, in the ranging process, the separated access frame and ranging frame in the traditional method are integrated into a multi-functional ranging frame, enabling the system to simultaneously complete the access confirmation and distance measurement in a single signal interaction. By combining the timestamp information of the current round and historical rounds, a complete timestamp set for calculating distance is constructed, achieving the ranging effect equivalent to the traditional two-round interaction in a single interaction, effectively reducing communication overhead and ranging delay, and without the need for additional hardware resources, the concurrent access capability of the system has been significantly enhanced. Finally, the concurrent positioning performance of the system was verified at Wuhai Energy Laoshandan Coal Mine. The results showed that, while maintaining the same positioning accuracy as the DS TWR, this method reduced the single measurement cycle to 3.3 ms, enabling concurrent ranging for 100 identification cards per second, and the ranging success rate reached as high as 99%.