Outdoor tracking has been used for decades, algorithms to improve space-based satellite navigation system has immensely improved in the past decades. Different countries, including US, Russia, China, and EU, has worked towards launching their own systems. And without a doubt, it is one of the greatest discoveries of mankind within the past decades — it is being used in vehicle, personnel, tracking in various industries — food, logistics, staff transport, and many, many others. It is also very possibly going to replace legacy aircraft landing systems, e.g., TACAS, ILS, in the very near future.
However one area of tracking that has not been given much attention to is indoor location tracking, also known as real-time location services. The innate nature and requirements of outdoor tracking limits its usability indoors — the requirement for a clear view of the sky, the lock-in time to get an accurate GPS fix, and limited accuracy it provide indoors.
One of the projects that I have worked with is RTLS, using WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies, from a system integrator perspective it is straightforward. You only need two pieces for the system, these are beacons and gateways which communicate with each other using BLE, afterwards the gateways, via WiFi, forward the packets to the all-powerful Cloud. The project I have worked in projects which involve upwards of 4000 beacons and 800 gateways, in a 20-floor plan-setting.
During our training we learned that behind the scenes, as simple as it seems, there are many algorithms and logic going on to filter and refine the packets sent by the gateway to provide the illustrious 1-meter accuracy. The great thing about it though is that clients do not have to be bogged down with all these details.
The solution provides a scalable, enterprise-ready, and cost-effective solution which can be used to monitor numerous locations and personnel.
Reference:
Bluvision. http://bluvision.com/
