Experimental analysis of IEEE 802.15.4a CSS ranging and its implications

The IEEE 802.15.4a Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS), known to be resistant to electromagnetic disturbances, performs precise ranging. This work aims to analyze the performance and characteristics of CSS ranging in indoor environments under actual real-life conditions. The results indicate that unpredictable multi-path effects due to surrounding deployment environments may cause unreliable ranging distances in indoor environments. This phenomenon may critically influence the positioning algorithm. To address this issue, this research proposes a simple scheme to estimate the reliability of measured distance.