7th IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems (SIES'12)

Performance Evaluation of Chirp Spread Spectrum

Ranging for Indoor Embedded Navigation Systems
Paolo Pivato∗ , Stefano Dalpez† and David Macii∗
∗ Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI)
University of Trento, Via Sommarive, 5 - 38123, Trento - Italy
E-mail:{pivato,macii}@disi.unitn.it
†
Centre for Materials and Microsystems (CMM IRST)
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Via Alla Cascata, 56 - 38123, Trento - Italy
E-mail: sdalpez@fbk.eu

Abstract—Wireless distance measurement techniques based on
portable embedded platforms are expected to play a key role in
several industrial and domestic applications. In this paper the
ranging accuracy of a commercial Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS)
kit is evaluated experimentally in a real-world context. The pro-
posed analysis provides more precise and exhaustive information
than what it is usually reported in the technical literature. In fact,
this paper is specifically focused on performance evaluation and
it deals with the case of short-range indoor scenarios in both
Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) repeatable
conditions. The resulting analysis represents the first step towards
the design of a custom indoor embedded navigation system for
a smart rollator assisting impaired people to move safely in an
indoor public environment.
Index Terms—Indoor Ranging, Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS),
Ambient Assisted Living, Embedded Navigation Systems.
I. I NTRODUCTION
In the last few years a growing body of research has
faced the issue of indoor localization. Several alternative
solutions for indoor ranging and localization have been pro-
posed, e.g. based on laser rangefinders, ultra-sound devices,
infrared sensors, radio frequency (RF) signals and video cam-
eras [1]–[3]. Among them, RF ranging techniques are ideally
preferable because portable embedded systems are already
natively equipped with wireless chips for radio communica-
tion. Unfortunately, distance estimation based on received-
signal-strength (RSS) measurements is strongly affected by
multipath propagation phenomena, especially indoors. In fact,
the received signal intensity generally exhibits large position-
dependent fluctuations, instead of a monotonic behavior, even
in LOS conditions [4]. This in turn strongly influences ranging
accuracy, which indeed can be hardly smaller than a few
meters.
In order to address this problem, some alternative wireless
technologies and methods have been proposed to estimate the
distance between two radio devices, e.g. by measuring the
time of arrival (TOA), the time difference of arrival (TDOA)
or the round trip time (RTT) of radio messages. When some
message time-of-flight parameter is measured, the influence of
multipath propagation on distance estimation can be mitigated
by properly choosing both the radio communication scheme
and the message timestamping mechanism. The main features
of some wireless ranging solutions are shortly summarized in
Tab. I. A precise comparison between them is difficult, mainly
because the experimental conditions are not the same and
sometimes they are not even clearly described in the respective
papers. At the moment, the ultra-wideband (UWB) techniques
assure the best accuracy (e.g., in the order of 10-20 cm),
albeit at the expense of a significant power dissipation for a
given range [5]–[7]. Measuring the RTT of IEEE 802.15.4
message can provide good ranging accuracy in static LOS
conditions and after an adequate calibration [8]. However, the
distance measurement error in dynamic scenarios may easily
exceed 1 m, unless sophisticated data processing algorithms
are used [9]. Alternative solutions based on chirp spread
spectrum (CSS) exhibit promising accuracy (i.e., below 50 cm)
especially outdoors [10]–[12]. However, the existing data on
CSS-based ranging performance in indoor environments are
confusing. For this reason, this paper reports the results of
a thorough empirical characterization of a commercial CSS-
based ranging platform under clear and repeatable experimen-
tal conditions. The proposed analysis represents the first step
towards the design of a novel indoor navigation system. Such
a system is going to be installed on a collaborative rollator,
called c-walker, assisting impaired users to move safely within
a public environment such as a shopping mall or an airport.
II. CSS- BASED R ANGING
CSS is a spread spectrum radio communication technique
relying on linear frequency modulated signals. In particular,
CSS systems use chirp signals to code the user data stream.
The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiving end (i.e. the
processing gain) is improved by means of a pulse compression.
When a chirp of duration Tc is processed by its matched filter,
the output peak has a duration proportional to 1/B, where B
is the chirp bandwidth [13]. Hence, the processing gain can
be easily scaled by varying the bandwidth-duration product
of the chirp. Given an incoming chirp signal s(t, ωi , Ti ) with
center frequency ωi at time Ti , the peak at the output of the
matched filter reaches its maximum at t = Ti . Accordingly,

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 TABLE I
ACCURACY PERFORMANCE OF DIFFERENT TOF- BASED
RANGING SYSTEMS .

Authors Technology Method Accuracy1

Falsi et al. [5] UWB TOA ≈ 15 cm

De Angelis et al. [7] UWB RTT ≈ 20 cm

Tingting et al. [6] UWB TDOA ≈ 20 cm

Santinelli et al. [8] ZigBee RTT ≈ 60 cm

Röhrig et al. [12] CSS RTT ≈ 50 cm

1 - The definition of accuracy may slightly differ in different papers.
The reported values generally include the effect of both mean error
and standard deviation.

the matched filter output signal has a sinc-like shape given by:
µ  Fig. 1. Screenshot of the NI LabView application for data acquisition.
sin 2 ·(t−Ti )·(Tc −|t−Ti |)
g(t,ωi ,Ti )= µ ·ejωi (t−Ti ) |t−Ti |<Tc (1)
2
symmetric double-sided two-way ranging (SDS-TWR) [15].
where µ is the chirp rate expressed in rad/s2 . The amendment
In the experimental sessions presented in this paper, one
IEEE 802.15.4a-2007 recommends the CSS as an alternative
device was kept steadily in a reference position, whereas the
physical (PHY) layer for wireless sensor networks (WSNs)
other was mounted on top of a rollator. In the following the
deployed in high mobility scenarios [14]. It is worth empha-
stationary device will be simply called fixed anchor (FA),
sizing that the duration of CSS-based cross-correlation peaks
while the other one will be referred to as moving target (MT).
can be made much shorter than using the Direct Sequence
In general, the distance values measured by either device
Spread Spectrum (DSSS) signals specified in the standard
are visualized on a dot matrix liquid crystal display (LCD).
IEEE 802.15.4. This property leads to two further benefits.
Since the ranging kit does not offer the possibility to save
First of all, the peak rising time as well as the jitter affecting
a continuous stream of data, a NI LabView application for
message timestamping at the receiving end can be considerably
optical character recognition (OCR) was developed to collect
reduced. This means that, since precise short pulses (e.g.
and to process large amounts of measurement results. The
UWB) are difficult to generate in the time domain, CSS can be
control panel of this application is shown in Fig. 1. The
regarded as an appealing solution for time-of-flight parameter
LabView application at first records the raw images collected
measurement. Secondly, narrow cross-correlation pulses are
by a typical webcam. Each collected image is pre-processed to
generally easier to detect and to discriminate. This is of crucial
increase its contrast and brightness. Afterwards, it is processed
importance because generally possible signal replicas due to
by a set of pattern recognition functions provided by the
multipath propagation may overlap and hide the LOS term.
NI Vision toolbox. These functions, based on a training set of
However, if the peaks of different replicas are distinguishable,
decimal characters, recognize the digits shown on the display.
the probability of detecting the LOS contribution is higher.
Finally, the virtual instrument checks the consistency of the
Therefore, the distance from the transmitter can be estimated
recognized characters by matching the results with a known
with better accuracy.
4-digit pattern (along with the decimal point). In this way,
III. E XPERIMENTS D ESCRIPTION possible invalid values are automatically discarded, whereas
the correct ones are saved into a file in a tabular format.
A. Experimental Setup
Several experiments were conducted in a rectangular room B. Experimental Results
with a size of 8.6 × 6 m. The chosen room has a wooden floor Different kinds of experiments were repeated using the setup
and it is furnished with a table placed at about 1 m from one described in Section III-A. At first, the FA was placed on top
of the side walls. The tool used to evaluate the performance of a 1-m plastic pole at about 1 m from the center of one of the
of CSS-based ranging is the Nanotron Ranging Kit RK-II. longer walls of the room. Antennas were kept perfectly parallel
It consists of two identical battery-operated wireless hand- to one another so as to maximize the communication gain. The
held devices. Each device is equipped with an omnidirectional distance values were collected in LOS conditions with the MT
monopole antenna and a CSS nanoPAN 5375 RF Module located in ten equally spaced points from the FA in the range
transmitting in the 2.4 GHz Instrumentation Scientific and [0, 5] m along three different directions (represented by solid
Medical (ISM) band. The nanoPAN 5375 RF Module is able to lines in Fig. 2). In any of such points the height of the MT
estimate the distance from another twin module through RTT from the floor was varied between 75 cm and 125 cm. On the
measurements. This technique sometimes is also referred to as whole, 4500 data were collected. Fig. 3 shows the box-and-

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Error [m]
0

−1

−2

−3

−4

−5
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Fig. 2. Experimental setup scheme. Real Distance [m]

whiskers diagram of the measured distance errors in any of
such points when the MT was 100 cm above the floor. The
results for 75 cm and 125 cm are quite similar and are not
shown for the sake of brevity. This means that a small offset
between the equatorial planes of the antennas does not affect
accuracy significantly. Due to some residual multipath-related,
position-dependent offsets, the maximum error is in the order
of ±1 m with a very small standard deviation, i.e. in the order
Fig. 3. Box-and-whisker diagram of the measured distance errors in static
conditions. The nodes measuring the range are placed at fixed distances from
one another between 0 and 5 m. In each position multiple data are collected.
5
4
3

of less than 10 cm. It is worth noting that the data collected 2

at distances shorter than 1 m could be affected by some near- 1
field antenna anisotropies.
Error [m]

0
In order to analyze the performance of the ranging technique
−1
in dynamic conditions, two orthogonal kinds of experiments
were conducted. In both cases the MT was mounted on top −2

of the rollator at about 1 m above the floor. In the first −3

group of experiments a user repeatedly pushed the rollator
forth and back along five arcs of a circle with radius equal
to 1 m, 2 m, 3 m, 4 m and 5 m, respectively. In all cases
the FA was approximately located in the center of the circle
always in LOS conditions. In order to make the intrinsic
uncertainty associated with the movement over the chosen
trajectory as little as possible (i.e. in the order of a few cm),
some adhesive markers were put on the floor to guide the user.
The corresponding measurement errors at different nominal
distances are shown in the box-and-whiskers diagram of Fig. 4.
Observe that, unlike the static case, the mean values of the
distance error is around zero, but the standard deviation is
larger than before (i.e., about 30 cm). However, except for a
few outliers (highlighted by cross markers), the peak-to-peak
error ranges are comparable. Thus, the apparent differences
between Figs. 3 and 4 are probably due to the fact that
the residual position-dependent systematic offsets change even
when the distance is the same. In other words, the variance of
the error distribution in Fig. 4 is larger because it includes
the offset variations as a function of time associated with
the movement of the target. Note also that the increment
of the worst-case absolute error with distance is negligible.
This means that the relative measurement uncertainty tends to
become smaller when the range becomes larger.
The results of the dual set of experiments are shown in
−4
−5
1 2 3 4 5
Real Distance [m]
Fig. 4. Box-and-whisker diagram of the measured distance errors in dynamic
conditions with the MT mounted on a rollator moving forth and back over
five arcs of a circle with radius equal to 1 m, 2 m, 3 m, 4 m and 5 m.
Fig. 5. In this case the rollator was pushed forth and back
repeatedly along the same three straight line trajectories
previously considered in the static experiments. The values
measured by the MT were collected in 15 equally spaced
points from the FA in either direction. The box-and-whiskers
diagram in Fig. 5(a) just refers to 30 movements from 5 m
to 0 m. The diagram shown in Fig. 5(b) instead shows the
error ranges obtained when the rollator was moving in the
opposite direction. No significant differences were observed
between the results associated with the three chosen trajec-
tories. Observe that both the mean value and the standard
deviation of the distance errors in Fig. 5(a) are very different
from those in Fig. 5(b). In the former case the two handheld
devices of the ranging kit are always in LOS conditions and
the measurement accuracy is compatible to what it is shown

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Since data sheets and other published results typically re-
port unclear information on CSS-based ranging accuracy in
4
indoor environments, in this paper we analyzed empirically
3 the performance of this technique using a last-generation, off-
2 the-shelf kit. Multiple results show that in LOS conditions
1 the accuracy is generally quite good (i.e., typically in the
Error [m]

0
order of 50 cm). On the contrary, in NLOS conditions or in
presence of obstacles, accuracy and precision may degrade
−1
considerably. Therefore, in view of designing a custom indoor
−2 navigation system, occlusion detection will be essential to keep
−3 the positioning uncertainty below specified limits.
−4 V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
−5
0.8 1.1 1.4 1.7 2 2.3 2.6 2.9 3.2 3.5 3.8 4.1 4.4 4.7 5
The research activities and the results presented in this
Real Distance [m] paper are part of the FP-7 project DALI - Devices for Assisted
(a) Living co-funded by the European Union, grant agreement no.
5
ICT 2011-288917.
4 R EFERENCES
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IV. C ONCLUSIONS
Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) modulation is considered
as one of the most promising solutions for both wireless
communication and ranging and it is expected to be used
in various portable embedded systems in the near future.
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