Queries regarding deployment of Decawave for tracking in warehouse

Wireless Connectivity Ultra-Wideband
1

Hi,
I am working on product for tracking forklift in warehouse using Decawave module. I am taking data from tag itself by WiFi. I have some queries regarding deployment in large area, as limit of BCN slots in broadcasted superframe by initiator is 16.
Does this means that i can use only 16 anchor in range of one initiator?
Can i have same network id for more then 16 anchors?
Do i need have more number of initiator after sufficient distance between them so to expand the system, because tag can only communicate with anchors having same network id?
Is there any limit on number of anchors having same network id?
If there is then how i can eliminate this to deploy the system in large warehouse?
Thanks and Regards
Akansha

2

A proper system capable of handling a large warehouse in an industrial setting, with the required performance and up time, requires a system that is developed for that purpose. There are a lot of system design issues that are not presently handled in the module code base, just one of which is ability to scale to large installs.

For example, we have installed in 43,000 m^2 museum with 600 anchors forming a seamless location system. That isn’t possible without deep custom system design.

I suggest you contact one of our partners who specializes in warehouse and forklift tracking:

Sorry if this wasn’t helpful, but it isn’t a simple task.

Mike Ciholas, President, Ciholas, Inc
3700 Bell Road, Newburgh, IN 47630 USA
mikec@ciholas.com
+1 812 962 9408

3

Hi Akansha,

if you talk about PANS then the system can scale if you follow the deployment rules. This is a radio technology so it all shares the same physical medium. The key is to have condition that would allow to reuse the air-time.

If you put all anchors and all tags in a small room, then basically you can have max. 30 Anchors and e.g. 15 Tags running at 10 Hz or 150 Tags running at 1 Hz or 1500 Tags running at 0.1 Hz etc.

In most of cases it does not make sense to stuffs all the anchors in the same place. You want to maximize the utility of investment in infrastructure. So by following the deployment rules, ideally formed of grids, you can achieve a large scale deployment. The nodes will form the network automatically.

Currently there is no visual tools that would allow to simplify this task so it is not an easy task. If you want the project to good smoothly then the best way is to look for some system integrator, some companies who focus on that. It might be a bit of pain to achieve that with PANS without spending enough time on learning.

I hope it helped a bit.

TDK

4

hi Leapslabs
i have below 2 questions:

  1. may i know what if i want to use more than 15 tags inside the range of one anchor？
  2. when i setup two networks with different panid in the same area. i mean this two network have very huge overlapped area. if the sum of the number of anchors in network one and the number of anchors in network two should still be less than 30?
  3. if there is any method to change the panid of a tag when if moves from one network (panid:0zAAAAA) to another network (0xBBBB), to let it could join in the network of 0xBBBB from 0xAAAA.
    please help me.
    thanks
5

it is three questions

6

Hi,

  1. You can, the overall capacity for the in-range Tags is 150 Hz. You can organize the usage of that 150 Hz as you want. If the Tags are not in range with each others and not influencing radio-wise, then that air-time can be reuse. E.g. you can have 150 tags at 1Hz or 1500 tags at 0.1Hz etc.

  2. Yes, the sum is 30. The networks with different PANIDs do cooperate and share the same air-time.

  3. The networks are separated. You can reconfigure the network using by detecting it and changing the PANID based on your network structure knowledge. The PANID can be reconfigured via UART/SPI/BLE. Not via UWB, because it is when the node has to already be connected / binded to a certain network.

Cheers,
TDK