A Comparative Evaluation of UWB and BLE AoA for Short-Range Indoor Localization

Accurate indoor localization is a key enabler for Industry 4.0 and IoT applications, including asset tracking and human–machine interaction. Among available techniques, Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) estimation offers directional information with minimal infrastructure. This paper presents a comparative evaluation of two commercial AoA platforms: the Murata Type2AB module, based on UWB (Qorvo DW3000), and the u-blox XPLR-AOA-2 kit, which leverages Bluetooth 5.1 Direction Finding. Experiments were conducted in a motion-capture-equipped lab to provide ground-truth reference. The systems were tested at various distances and orientations, and evaluated in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and robustness. The UWB platform achieved average angular errors below 4∘ with standard deviations under 5∘ across all conditions. The BLE system exhibited similar angular accuracy (mean error 4.7∘) within ±45∘, but degraded beyond that range, with errors exceeding 20∘ and variability up to 5∘.