Time Domain Debuts 6th Generation UWB Sensor
Time Domain, of Huntsville, Alabama, is debuting a new ultra-wideband sensor at Xponential, along with its integration partner, 5D Robotics.
The company (Booth #2549) is showing its PulsON P440, its sixth-generation UWB sensor that is capable of ranging to below two centimeters’ accuracy at up to 600 meters or more. The company is also showing a lower cost variant, the P330, which can range up to 10 centimeters.
Time Domain’s Jon Hedges says the robotics industry is a growing area for the company’s products, as robots on the ground and in the air can use them to avoid obstacles and establish precise locations.
5D Robotics has used them to keep autonomous heavy equipment from running into each other, mining companies have used them to do something similar for mining trucks and now unmanned aircraft are using them for collision avoidance (the P440 can incorporate radar as well as UWB) or to aid in autonomous landing.
“People are wanting to automate these vehicles, and they want to do that to improve processes and improve operational efficiency, but they also need really accurate performance to assure safety and reliability, particularly when these systems are operating around people,” Hedges says. “That’s what we’re able to provide.”
UWB uses extremely low-power pulses — 50 millionths of a watt — spread out over a wide area, two gigahertz of bandwidth at a time, hence the name. The systems can work in places where GPS, lidar and optical systems struggle, such as indoors or in bad weather.
“We’re not trying to replace those technologies — they have their place — but we’re a supplementary technology. … We found a lot of success in supplementing those technologies where they don’t work well or don’t work at all,” he says.
