MDEK1001/DWM1001 and DW1000 communication

Wireless Connectivity Ultra-Wideband
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Hi all,

I’m trying to set a RTLS using MDEK1001/DWM1001 as anchors and DW1000+arduino as tags. I know it looks like a very particular design but I kind of have the need for it. The arduino library I’m using is thotro’s arduino-dw1000 (https://github.com/thotro/arduino-dw1000) and it is working perfectly when I use DW1000 as tags AND anchors. The problem comes when I want to make them work with the MDEK1001/DWM1001 devices: I set the anchors with MDEK1001 and tags with arduino-dw1000, but they can’t communicate. Of course I configure them with the same network ID. Do any of you know what may be causing trouble? Or maybe another way of making this work like different libraries or something like that?

Also, I’ve been wondering if this could be a protocol disagree, as if the creator of the arduino-dw1000 library had designed his own one. How could I sniff the packets between MDEK1001/DWM1001s interchange in order to see if they match the messages protocol going on with arduino-dw1000?

Thank all in advance, would really appreciate your help.
Greetings

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Hi Mario,

I tried to find out more about the software you found on github. Other then the date and it’s purpose (Stable transmission of messages between two modules is possible) I couldn’t find.

So I’m sure the SW is not going to work with MDEK. The reason would be that in MDEK the TAG would have more “intelligence” than the Anchors, this in contrast to TREK or a TdoA system.

The function on the MDEK TAG and what it needs to do is described in the MDEK system user manual.

Other than this It would be unclear to me if the github is double or single sided TWR (MDEK is Single Sided TWR , TDMA Software) ) , nor would I know the RF config. (MDEK uses Ch5, 6.5Ghz, 6.8 Mbps),

The way forward would be to purchase a DWM1001, connect it to your Arduino and use the APIs over the SPI interface to communicate with the DWM1001.

See the DWM1001 firmware guide (attached) for more information and examples.DWM1001-Firmware-User-Guide.pdf (1.6 MB)

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