Hello,
I’m new to RTLS and was wondering if the DWM1001 Module, configured as anchors, would be capable of pairing with BLE mobile devices (iOS/Android) rather than tags. We’re hoping to develop user dashboard to track user analytics through our mobile app that our customers have installed.
Your assistance is much appreciated.
Thank you,
Eddie
Hi Eddie,
No it is not possible because your android device does no have an UWB transceiver such as the DW1000.
The key technology in the DWM1001 (anchor or tags) is the DW1000 UWB transceiver.
This chip can transmit/receive UWB signals, which by nature are extremely short in the time domain, allowing to perform extremely accurate time-stamping and consequently measure distance and position down to the centimeter precision. This is not possible with BLE (or at least not with the same precision).
Hope it helps,
Yves
Hi Yves,
Thank you for your response and explanation, that makes complete sense. When revising the DMW1001 module, i noticed that it comes equipped with the Nordic nRF52832 BLE chipset. Would you be able to explain the use of the embedded hardware?
Thanks again for the help!
The DWM1001 fits a DW1000 UWB transceiver as well as a nrf52832 with BLE.
The DW1000 is an UWB radio used to provide very accurate timestamps. It enables measurement of accurate distances. In order to perform correctly, the DW1000 must be coupled with a micro-controller (mcu) that will basically control its behavior by sending instructions (such as receive/transmit).
The nrf52832 is the mcu used to program/control the DW1000 within the DWM1001.
It offers a BLE interface allowing connection to other BLE devices. This is very useful for low power data transfer for example, but it does not enable accurate distance calculation as the DW1000 does.
Note that we could have used a different micro-controller (there are a whole variety of them on the market), but the DW1000 is the main solution on the market to perform such accurate timestamping with UWB.
Yves