Sensor Radar for Object Tracking

Precise localization and tracking of moving objects is of great interest for a variety of emerging applications including the Internet-of-Things (IoT). The localization and tracking tasks are challenging in harsh wireless environments, such as indoor ones, especially when objects are not equipped with dedicated tags (noncollaborative). The problem of detecting, localizing, and tracking noncollaborative objects within a limited area has often been undertaken by exploiting a network of radio sensors, scanning the zone of interest through wideband radio signals to create a radio image of the objects. This paper presents a sensor network for radio imaging (sensor radar) along with all of the signal processing steps necessary to achieve highaccuracy objects tracking in harsh propagation environments. The described sensor radar is based on the impulse radio (IR) ultrawideband (UWB) technology, entailing the transmission of very short duration pulses. Experimental results with actual UWB signals in indoor environments confirm the sensor radar's potential in IoT applications.