The low power, high presision antenna board quickly brings reliable indoor positioning solutions to market
The ANT-B10 antenna board by u-blox for Bluetooth direction finding and indoor positioning applications enables low power, high precision indoor positioning and speeds up evaluation, testing, and commercialisation of Bluetooth direction finding and indoor positioning solutions including integration into commercial end-products.
Bluetooth indoor positioning uses the angle of arrival (AoA) of a Bluetooth direction finding signal emitted by a mobile tag at several fixed anchor points to calculate the tag’s location in real-time with sub-meter accuracy. The low-cost technology allows high accuracy and can be installed and maintained.
The ANT-B10 features an antenna array comprising eight individual patch antennas and is built around a u‑blox NINA-B411 Bluetooth 5.1 module. After processing incoming RF signals emitted by mobile tracker tags in the module’s radio and angle calculation processor, the solution outputs the calculated angle of arrival without requiring any additional processes.
To determine the angle of arrival of incoming signals for direction finding, the ANT-B10 board concurrently processes them on all eight patch antennas. Because implementing multiple RF paths connected to multiple RF switches unnecessarily increases power demand and introduces errors, the ANT-B10 board uses an industry-leading single RF switch component from CoreHW that cycles through the eight antennas at a microsecond timescale.
Also included is an XPLR-AOA-3 explorer kit featuring an application board that offers developers a quick and easy way to evaluate and test the ANT-B10 antenna board.
An off-the-shelf pin header on the application board allows for easy bring-up and testing of ANT-B10 and third-party antenna boards. And connecting the two boards yields a ready-to-use AoA indoor positioning anchor point in seconds.
ANT-B10 and XPLR-AOA-3 complement the existing u‑blox indoor positioning offerings, including the popular XPLR-AOA-1 and XPLR-AOA-2 kits. Using u-connectLocate, which runs on ANT-B10’s Bluetooth module, solution developers can easily execute the angle calculation algorithms using AT commands. When combined, the solution suite is ready to go for end-product integration.
Common use cases for Bluetooth indoor positioning and direction include tracking assets in industrial settings such as in warehouses as well as people and things in hospitals, retail environments, or museums. Additionally, access control systems deployed in connected buildings can use angle detection to determine the side of a door where users are present.
“With the introduction of ANT-B10 and the XPLR-AOA-3 kit, we are excited to offer a complete u‑blox RF-to-cloud solution for Bluetooth-based indoor positioning and direction finding. The solution lets developers benefit from our in-house expertise in angle calculation and multipath suppression, saving development costs and shortening time to market,” says Giorgos Marakis, Product Strategy, Short Range Radio, at u‑blox.
“We are excited to be part of such a great all-round indoor positioning solution. u‑blox has really demonstrated its commitment to bringing down the barriers to entry for Bluetooth indoor positioning solutions and popularizing the technology,” says Mika Jäsberg, VP Components at CoreHW.
The ANT-B10 boards are available today. Sampling of ANT-B10 to customers has already begun.
