Hi! Will the air environment have an impact on UWB ranging? For example, dust, high humidity, and strong winds?
I have been conducting distance measurement tests based on DW1000 recently and found that there are differences in distance measurement at different locations for the same distance. May I ask what factors can cause this phenomenon?
No, the air won’t have any impact.
Background RF noise levels can have an impact, they will tend to raise the detection threshold and so give a slight increase in range.
Highly RF reflective environments will also tend to show an increase in background noise and so also increase the range slightly,
Height of the antennas above the ground can have a significant impact in signal levels and so also impact measured range.
There is also a temperature effect, electrical signals travel faster in cold silicon than hot and so you will see a temperature effect on the range. But this is tied to the temperature of the chip not of the air.
How much difference are you seeing?
Rain and snow can increase attenuation depending on amount and drop size. Wind can have a big impact on scattering from vegetation which affects fading. There are many studies out there on UWB channel models under different weather conditions. See for example: