ANVILS — UWB Bus Network
A UWB mesh network for Sheffield's bus system accurate to 17 cm — 17.5× better than current systems — modelled across 54 receiver nodes with a 2.3-year payback period.
For the Global Engineering Challenge, our six-person team designed ANVILS — Accurate Networked Vehicle Information Live Service — a UWB mesh network for real-time bus tracking across Sheffield's public transport network.
The system reaches 17 cm positional accuracy, roughly 17.5× better than what current tracking systems achieve. I modelled TDoA and Time of Arrival positioning across 54 receiver nodes along the 120 bus route.
The engineering only matters if the economics work, so I also ran the cost-benefit analysis: £670,000 implementation cost against a 2.3-year payback period, with 10 kWh/day energy consumption across 18 buses, targeting a 9.2% to 25% modal shift over five years.
When we presented to the panel I identified a post-hoc cost estimation error in our own financial model. Not a comfortable thing to raise about your own team's work in front of judges, but a cost model that is quietly wrong is worse than one that is openly corrected.