An introduction to Bluetooth Channel Sounding
Why Bluetooth needed a new way to estimate distance: what signal strength and direction finding can and cannot do, and how a two-way exchange changes what is possible.
Read moreA small firm with a long record in RF localization.
SageLab is the consulting practice of Kyle Golsch, an RF system engineer who has spent his career helping bring difficult wireless systems from first idea to production.
The name says how the work is done. A sage is valued for judgment, and for knowing the limits of what they know; the sage plant is both healing and hardy. SageLab aims to be both: easy to work with, firm when the physics demands it, and honest about what is known and what still has to be measured.
Who you’ll work with
Kyle Golsch
Principal
RF system engineer. The recurring role: the one who figures things out fast, setting system direction in confusing situations, going deep where it matters, and bringing in deeper specialists when that is the cheaper path to a real answer.
Kyle creates value for clients by bringing a wide set of skills to wherever the need is. He has designed localization algorithms hands-on in real vehicles, carried the customer relationship as lead system engineer, and shaped specifications within industry consortia.
What SageLab has worked on, latest first
Since 2015, SageLab has worked on contract for DENSO. In the public record (specifications, articles, talks) Kyle appears under DENSO’s name, because that is how the client asked to be represented. The work below was SageLab’s, for a client.
Now
Positioning and sensing
Today the work is ultra-wideband (UWB) sensing, indoor positioning (including the network timing that makes synchronized sensing possible), and continuing contributions to the Bluetooth SIG that can’t yet be discussed publicly: the same localization problem, one layer down.
2023
Credited as DENSO
Growing the Channel Sounding ecosystem
Specification and system development continued, and ecosystem development grew alongside it: speaking on secure distance measurement, presenting at the Bluetooth SIG’s workshops in Greater China, and being quoted across the SIG’s launch coverage. In the same period, Kyle made technical contributions to the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), including helping to draft a CCC specification that has since been adopted.
Invited speaker · Bluetooth SIG · April 2023
Highly Accurate and Secure Distance Measurement Using Bluetooth® Technology
Technologies for Automotive Design & Test Seminar, alongside speakers from the Bluetooth SIG and DENSO.
Workshops · Bluetooth SIG · ICCOA · ICCE · April 2024
Channel Sounding workshops, Greater China
Presented as one of DENSO’s subject-matter experts to hundreds from the Chinese automotive industry.
Quoted · bluetooth.com · September–October 2024
The Bluetooth SIG’s Channel Sounding launch coverage
Extending an already rich ecosystem, the Bluetooth® Channel Sounding standard enables connected devices to more precisely and securely locate each other, paving the way for the design of new low-cost, energy-efficient, location-aware solutions.
2020
Credited as DENSO
Channel Sounding development
Asked to develop Channel Sounding inside DENSO, SageLab leveraged the phase and antenna skills of the Polestar program to kick-start the work. The role was to understand the technology deeply, demonstrate it to partners and automakers, and make sure the development was meeting real needs. That work earned the trust that grew into the client’s seat in Bluetooth specification development.
Standards · Bluetooth SIG · 2024
Contributor, Bluetooth Core Specification 6.0 and 6.2
Sections drafted, defended through working-group review, and shipped in the specification that introduced Channel Sounding.
Standards · Bluetooth SIG · November 2024
Named contributor, Bluetooth Ranging Profile 1.0
Listed in the acknowledgments of the profile that puts Channel Sounding to work.
2019
Polestar 2
Instrumental in winning the digital key program for the Polestar 2 by leveraging system knowledge and customer interaction skills from the Ford program. Polestar wanted angle-of-arrival localization before the Bluetooth specification enabling it was released; SageLab understood what the physics demanded and, during the quoting phase, prototyped what the hardware would need to do to make the system work. That won the business, and Kyle continued as Lead System Engineer on the program, working out the system’s packaging in the vehicle and negotiating key specifications.
Product · Polestar · May 2021
Polestar 2 adds digital key
Launch coverage of the feature as owners received it.
2017
Credited as DENSO
Ford phone-as-a-key
The vehicle demo Kyle prepared and his candor about how to architect to Ford’s requirements were instrumental in DENSO winning the business. The work mattered so much to Ford and DENSO that it was recognized with awards from both companies in the same year. Kyle went on to become the Lead System Engineer, developing key specifications and training the team that carried the program to production.
Award · Ford Motor Company · September 2018
Henry Ford Technology Award
Ford’s highest technical award, granted for Phone-as-a-Key phone localization optimization, jointly with the program team.
Award · DENSO Corporation · 2018, presented June 2019
DENSO President Award of World’s First Innovation
Awarded to the DIAM PG3 Body Electronics Systems team for the phone-as-a-key program, a world first for DENSO that started behind its competitors and finished by winning the business.
I’m proud of your tenacity and challenge mind. When you approached customer, your team was behind of competitors. However you never give up and finally you beat them with Denso unique technology.
2016
Prototyping the winning architecture
When Ford asked DENSO to quote phone-as-a-key, Kyle was called in to help win the business. He brought real know-how in getting things working in a vehicle and built a full vehicle demonstrator, hands-on in a garage, so Ford could feel how the system performed. He developed the algorithms and knew the system end to end. During the quoting process, his candor about the right and wrong ways to architect a system helped win the business.
2015
Bluetooth telematics for an electric vehicle
SageLab’s first work for DENSO was software: a Bluetooth connectivity system for an electric vehicle that gave drivers remote keyless entry and battery-status monitoring in markets without telematics. Kyle also trained the client’s software engineers to work on Bluetooth systems.
From the blog
Engineering write-ups on the technologies in the timeline above.