# Accurate position tracking with a single UWB anchor

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.10648 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.10648/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 21 May 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Ultra Inertial Poser: Scalable Motion Capture and Tracking from Sparse Inertial Sensors and Ultra-Wideband Ranging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.19541/) (2024)
- [Group Inertial Poser: Multi-Person Pose and Global Translation from Sparse Inertial Sensors and Ultra-Wideband Ranging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.21654/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Accurate localization and tracking are a fundamental requirement for robotic applications. Localization systems like GPS, optical tracking, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) are used for daily life activities, research, and commercial applications. Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology provides another venue to accurately locate devices both indoors and outdoors. In this paper, we study a localization solution with a single UWB anchor, instead of the traditional multi-anchor setup. Besides the challenge of a single UWB ranging source, the only other sensor we require is a low-cost 9 DoF inertial measurement unit (IMU). Under such a configuration, we propose continuous monitoring of UWB range changes to estimate the robot speed when moving on a line. Combining speed estimation with orientation estimation from the IMU sensor, the system becomes temporally observable. We use an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to estimate the pose of a robot. With our solution, we can effectively correct the accumulated error and maintain accurate tracking of a moving robot.