Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection Vehicle
Due to the COVID-19 virus being highly transmittable, frequently cleaning and disinfecting facilities is common guidance in public places. However, the more often the environment is cleaned, the higher the risk of cleaning staff getting infected. Therefore, strong demand for sanitizing areas in auto...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2021-08-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/15/5223 |
| _version_ | 1827600802363998208 |
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| author | Shih-Ping Huang Jin-Feng Neo Yu-Yao Chen Chien-Bang Chen Ting-Wei Wu Zheng-An Peng Wei-Ting Tsai Chong-Yi Liou Wang-Huei Sheng Shau-Gang Mao |
| author_facet | Shih-Ping Huang Jin-Feng Neo Yu-Yao Chen Chien-Bang Chen Ting-Wei Wu Zheng-An Peng Wei-Ting Tsai Chong-Yi Liou Wang-Huei Sheng Shau-Gang Mao |
| author_sort | Shih-Ping Huang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Due to the COVID-19 virus being highly transmittable, frequently cleaning and disinfecting facilities is common guidance in public places. However, the more often the environment is cleaned, the higher the risk of cleaning staff getting infected. Therefore, strong demand for sanitizing areas in automatic modes is undoubtedly expected. In this paper, an autonomous disinfection vehicle with an Ultraviolet-C (UVC) lamp is designed and implemented using an ultra-wideband (UWB) positioning sensor. The UVC dose for 90% inactivation of the reproductive ability of COVID-19 is 41.7 J/m<sup>2</sup>, which a 40 W UVC lamp can achieve within a 1.6 m distance for an exposure time of 30 s. With this UVC lamp, the disinfection vehicle can effectively sterilize in various scenarios. In addition, the high-accuracy UWB positioning system, with the time difference of arrival (TDOA) algorithm, is also studied for autonomous vehicle navigation in indoor environments. The number of UWB tags that use a synchronization protocol between UWB anchors can be unlimited. Moreover, this proposed Gradient Descent (GD), which uses Taylor method, is a high-efficient algorithm for finding the optimal position for real-time computation due to its low error and short calculating time. The generalized traversal path planning procedure, with the edge searching method, is presented to improve the efficiency of autonomous navigation. The average error of the practical navigation demonstrated in the meeting room is 0.10 m. The scalability of the designed system to different application scenarios is also discussed and experimentally demonstrated. Hence, the usefulness of the proposed UWB sensor applied to UVC disinfection vehicles to prevent COVID-19 infection is verified by employing it to sterilize indoor environments without human operation. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T04:42:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b7435aea7aab4bfca64c586abdb661fc |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T04:42:13Z |
| publishDate | 2021-08-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj.art-b7435aea7aab4bfca64c586abdb661fc2023-12-03T13:19:28ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202021-08-012115522310.3390/s21155223Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection VehicleShih-Ping Huang0Jin-Feng Neo1Yu-Yao Chen2Chien-Bang Chen3Ting-Wei Wu4Zheng-An Peng5Wei-Ting Tsai6Chong-Yi Liou7Wang-Huei Sheng8Shau-Gang Mao9Graduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanSchool of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanGraduate Institute of Commutation Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, TaiwanDue to the COVID-19 virus being highly transmittable, frequently cleaning and disinfecting facilities is common guidance in public places. However, the more often the environment is cleaned, the higher the risk of cleaning staff getting infected. Therefore, strong demand for sanitizing areas in automatic modes is undoubtedly expected. In this paper, an autonomous disinfection vehicle with an Ultraviolet-C (UVC) lamp is designed and implemented using an ultra-wideband (UWB) positioning sensor. The UVC dose for 90% inactivation of the reproductive ability of COVID-19 is 41.7 J/m<sup>2</sup>, which a 40 W UVC lamp can achieve within a 1.6 m distance for an exposure time of 30 s. With this UVC lamp, the disinfection vehicle can effectively sterilize in various scenarios. In addition, the high-accuracy UWB positioning system, with the time difference of arrival (TDOA) algorithm, is also studied for autonomous vehicle navigation in indoor environments. The number of UWB tags that use a synchronization protocol between UWB anchors can be unlimited. Moreover, this proposed Gradient Descent (GD), which uses Taylor method, is a high-efficient algorithm for finding the optimal position for real-time computation due to its low error and short calculating time. The generalized traversal path planning procedure, with the edge searching method, is presented to improve the efficiency of autonomous navigation. The average error of the practical navigation demonstrated in the meeting room is 0.10 m. The scalability of the designed system to different application scenarios is also discussed and experimentally demonstrated. Hence, the usefulness of the proposed UWB sensor applied to UVC disinfection vehicles to prevent COVID-19 infection is verified by employing it to sterilize indoor environments without human operation.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/15/5223COVID-19Ultraviolet-Cultra-widebanddisinfection vehiclewireless positioning |
| spellingShingle | Shih-Ping Huang Jin-Feng Neo Yu-Yao Chen Chien-Bang Chen Ting-Wei Wu Zheng-An Peng Wei-Ting Tsai Chong-Yi Liou Wang-Huei Sheng Shau-Gang Mao Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection Vehicle Sensors COVID-19 Ultraviolet-C ultra-wideband disinfection vehicle wireless positioning |
| title | Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection Vehicle |
| title_full | Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection Vehicle |
| title_fullStr | Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection Vehicle |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection Vehicle |
| title_short | Ultra-Wideband Positioning Sensor with Application to an Autonomous Ultraviolet-C Disinfection Vehicle |
| title_sort | ultra wideband positioning sensor with application to an autonomous ultraviolet c disinfection vehicle |
| topic | COVID-19 Ultraviolet-C ultra-wideband disinfection vehicle wireless positioning |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/15/5223 |
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