Real-Time Indoor & Outdoor
Location Tracking
Every aspect of the most accurate long-range indoor & Outdoor positioning system made available with industries standards and various proprietary RTLS technologies.
Two-Way Ranging (TWR)
- TWR offers maximum precision and positional stability. The anchor sends a UWB signal and the sensor returns it.
- The distance between the anchor and the sensor is determined by the time required for the UWB pulses.
- A position can be determined as soon as the distance of a sensor relative to different anchors is available.
- The TWR method is mainly used for the localization of workers, tools, and navigation of driverless transport systems.
Time-Difference of Arrival (TDoA)
- In the TDoA position determination the sensor transmits a signal which is received by the anchors at different intervals relative to the distance of the sensor.
- The position of the sensor is determined by the interval differences. Positioning with TDoA is mainly used for the localization of a large number of objects.
- It has the lowest energy consumption among the available methods on the market.
Angle-of-Arrival (AoA)
- The AoA method evaluates the phase difference between the received signals at the two antennas of an anchor.
- Based on this, the angle of the signal relative to the anchor is calculated and thus the position of the sensor can be determined.
- AoA is generally used for position determination when there is a limited infrastructure and additional information is to be used by the sensor signals.
Wireless Sensor Network
Wireless sensor networks consist of clusters of devices using sensor technologies deployed in a specific area. They communicate data wirelessly to a central system. Sensor networks continuously monitor the physical, chemical processes or magnetic properties, using the existing communications infrastructure.
- A software layer for processing and data management allows building industrial, government or military applications.
- Wireless sensor networks based on emerging technologies such as wireless communication technologies, information technology, semiconductors, MEMS, microsystems technology and embedded micro-sensors.
- Wireless sensor networks have the potential to revolutionize telecommunications in a way similar to what we call the Internet of things by offering a wide range of different applications some of which remain to be discovered. Sensor networks have a huge potential for applications in various fields, including:
- Environment and health: ocean temperature, collecting information on patients' conditions
- Management of critical industrial areas: monitoring of oil containers, checking the concentration of chemicals and gases
- Warehouse management and supply chain monitoring and historical states of the goods with the conditions of critical conservation
- Military applications: surveillance and recognition
- A wireless sensor network consists of many tiny sensor nodes, each equipped with a radio transceiver, a microprocessor and a number of sensors. These nodes are capable of independently forming a network through which sensor readings can be propagated. Each node has an autonomous processing capacity, data can be processed as they pass through the network.
- Given the limitations of the equipment and the physical environment and levels of high demands with which the nodes must operate, algorithms and protocols must be designed to provide strong and efficient energy consumption. The design of the physical layer and communication technologies and the information coding still represent significant challenges for this new technology.
Wireless Technologies for
Sensor & Tracker
LTE-M
- LTE-M (LTE-MTC [Machine Type Communication]), which includes eMTC (enhanced Machine Type Communication), is a type of low power wide area network (LPWAN) radio technology standard developed by 3GPP to enable a wide range of cellular devices and services (specifically, for machine-to-machine and Internet of Things applications).
- The specification for eMTC (LTE Cat-M1) was frozen in 3GPP Release 13 (LTE Advanced Pro), in June 2016. Other 3GPP IoT technologies include NB-IoT and EC-GSM-IoT.
- The advantage of LTE-M over NB-IoT is its comparatively higher data rate, mobility, and voice over the network, but it requires more bandwidth, is more costly, and cannot be put into guard band frequency band for now.
- Compared to LTE Release 12 Cat-0 modem, an LTE-M model is claimed to be 80% less expensive (in terms of the bill of materials), support up to 18 dB better coverage, and a battery lifetime than can last up to several years.
- In March 2019, the Global Mobile Suppliers Association reported that over 100 operators had deployed/launched either NB-IoT or LTE-M networks.
NB-IoT
- Narrowband Internet of things (NB-IoT) is a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) radio technology standard developed by 3GPP for cellular devices and services.
- The specification was frozen in 3GPP Release 13 (LTE Advanced Pro), in June 2016. Other 3GPP IoT technologies include eMTC (enhanced Machine-Type Communication) and EC-GSM-IoT.
- NB-IoT focuses specifically on indoor coverage, low cost, long battery life, and high connection density. NB-IoT uses a subset of the LTE standard, but limits the bandwidth to a single narrow-band of 200kHz. It uses OFDM modulation for downlink communication and SC-FDMA for uplink communications.
- IoT applications which require more frequent communications will be better served by NB-IoT, which has no duty cycle limitations operating on the licensed spectrum.
LoRa (Long Range)
- LoRa (short for long range) is a spread spectrum modulation technique derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology.
- LoRa is a long range, low power wireless platform that has become the de facto wireless platform of Internet of Things (IoT). LoRa devices and networks
- Such as the LoRaWAN® enable smart IoT applications that solve some of the biggest challenges facing our planet: energy management, natural resource reduction, pollution control, infrastructure efficiency, and disaster prevention.
- LoRa devices have amassed several hundred known uses cases for smart cities, homes and buildings, communities, metering, supply chain and logistics, agriculture, and more. With hundreds of millions of devices connected to networks in more than 100 countries and growing, LoRa is creating a smarter planet.
Position and Unique Identification
Technologies.
GPS (Global Positioning System)
Ideal for outdoor environments, GPS has conventional and accurate position calculation using its chipset with 10-meter precision, but requires more processing time, consuming more energy.
BLE – Bluetooth Low Energy
BLE ensures easy interoperability with other devices at short range with minimal power consumption. It is best for short-distance indoor positioning, using devices such as BLE beacons or a mobile phone. Moreover, real-time locating system (RTLS) identifies and tracks the location of objects or people in real time within a building or other contained areas.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
RFID is a generic technology concept that refers to the use of radio waves to identify objects (Auto-ID Center, 2002). All labels or RFID tags have a chip and an antenna. The chip is used to store information about objects as a unique serial number. The antenna enables the chip to communicate both data and receive electromagnetic energy to power the chip when the chip reader radiates.
The RFID chip is part of a range of technologies for recognition and identification such as barcodes, biometrics, magnetic tapes, optical cards, smart cards, etc. RFID is considered a significant improvement on the standard bar code label, which should be read by scanners "line of sight." The barcode labels can be damaged, bent, or stained, while passive RFID tags do not suffer these limitations.
Several passive RFID chips can be read simultaneously. They are the passive RFID cards (without batteries), the semi-passive RFID tags and the active tags powered by a battery. The active tags are used in some cases by RTLS systems or real-time tracking systems.
