Location systems based on conventional RF technology work poorly indoors because they are plagued by multipath distortion caused by radio signals reflected from walls, desks, people and equipment. This can often lead to positioning errors of several meters.

UWB radio systems can be typically accurate to about 15cm (6 inch) indoors because they are much less affected by multipath distortion than conventional RF systems and the calculation is based on time of arrival rather than signal strength.

An advantage of UWB over systems that use Infrared technology is in its ability to pass through objects such as walls and clothing. One common problem with infrared systems is that they will fail even if the tag is covered up by a shirt or jacket.

Ubisense also has an advantage over other UWB vendors due to the fact that it calculates location in two ways. Ubisense uses both Time Difference Of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival (AOA) which greatly reduces the density of sensors required to cover an area over systems that use just TDOA.