Analysis of Ultra Wide Band Technology for an Indoor Geolocation and Physiological Monitoring System

In dangerous or hostile situations it is important for command and control centers to know the location of each person in a building at all times. Examples are, a fire or a hostage situation where it is important to determine not only the location of a person in the building but also the physical situation of the person. Every year, nearly 100 firefighters die in the line of duty. A device that is capable of producing and sending geolocation information to a command and control center would offer a life-saving capability for those who risk their lives to save the lives of others. The United States Coast Guard Academy has been researching the development of an indoor, spread-spectrum geolocation system to track personnel inside buildings under a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Unit Operations Geolocation program. As a result, the determination of the location of the personnel in the building was achieved within a 2.86-meter radius. In other research the effort was to develop a system that will track individuals inside buildings to an accuracy of less than one meter.