A measurement-based blocking distribution for improving localization in warehouse environments

Abstract

In a warehouse environment, blocked line-of-sight between targets and anchors, due to storage racks, is an impediment to localization. For ultrawideband signals, the stochastic nature of the blocking phenomenon - due to its material penetrating capabilities - can be characterized by a location-specific blocking distribution. Once such a distribution is available, the localization of a potentially unknown number of targets can be cast as a Bayesian estimation problem, where the blocking distribution plays the role of a prior. This paper presents the results of a ultrawideband measurement campaign conducted to obtain the blocking distribution in a warehouse environment.