Ultra-wideband positioning giving sub-metre accuracy indoors, using time-of-flight rather than signal strength. It costs an anchor network and more energy per fix, so it is worth deploying when the operational question genuinely is which bay rather than which room.
UWB measures the time a pulse takes to travel between a tag and an anchor. Because it measures time rather than inferring from signal strength, it is far less affected by the reflections and absorption that make BLE positioning approximate.
The result is sub-metre accuracy, which enables a different class of application: robot and vehicle guidance indoors, precise work-in-progress location, exclusion zones around machinery that need to be metres rather than areas.
The cost is real. Anchors have to be installed and surveyed, tags use more energy per fix than BLE, and both hardware and installation cost more per point. Which is why the honest first question is whether zone-level accuracy actually answers the operational question — frequently it does, and then BLE is the correct choice.
| Parameter | Detail |
|---|---|
| Link | Ultra-wideband |
| Method | Time-of-flight ranging rather than signal strength inference |
| Accuracy | Sub-metre |
| Range | 10–50 m per anchor |
| Infrastructure | Surveyed anchor network |
| Battery life | Months to around two years, duty-cycled |
| Typical markets | Manufacturing, logistics, safety, robotics |
Maturity — silicon-proven, FPGA-validated or RTL stage — is confirmed at enquiry for the specific configuration you need, rather than claimed generically here.
Send the target node, the interface requirements and the integration context. If this is not the right fit, that will be said early rather than discovered at integration.
When the operational question is which bay rather than which room. Sub-metre accuracy enables machine exclusion zones, robot guidance and precise work-in-progress location; zone-level accuracy does not. If zone level answers the question, BLE is the correct and cheaper choice.
It measures time of flight rather than inferring distance from signal strength, so it is far less affected by the reflections and absorption that make signal-strength positioning approximate indoors.
Tell us the specification, the constraint and the deadline. Programmes that cross silicon, radio, embedded and AI are where Faststream is strongest.