  The key motivation for the low-frequency magnetic localization approach is
that magnetic near-fields are well predictable by a free-space model, which
should enable accurate localization. Yet, limited accuracy has been reported
for practical systems and it is unclear whether the inaccuracies are caused by
field distortion due to nearby conductors, unconsidered radiative propagation,
or measurement noise. Hence, we investigate the practical performance limits by
means of a calibrated magnetoinductive system which localizes an active
single-coil agent with arbitrary orientation, using 4 mW transmit power at 500
kHz. The system uses eight single-coil anchors around a 3m x 3m area in an
office room. We base the location estimation on a complex baseband model which
comprises both reactive and radiative propagation. The link coefficients, which
serve as input data for location estimation, are measured with a multiport
network analyzer while the agent is moved with a positioner device. This
establishes a reliable ground truth for calibration and evaluation. The system
achieves a median position error of 3.2 cm and a 90th percentile of 8.3 cm.
After investigating the model error we conjecture that field distortion due to
conducting building structures is the main cause of the performance bottleneck.
The results are complemented with predictions on the achievable accuracy in
more suitable circumstances using the Cram\'er-Rao lower bound.
