Professional Documents
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Positioning Technologies
- An Ekahau Whitepaper –
1 Positioning Defined
A positioning system determines the location of an object (“client”) in a particular space, such
as an enterprise facility or warehouse. Ideally, the positioning is done in real time, with the
ability to track the location of the object as it move through a space. By offering the
coordinates of an object, positioning technologies realize a vast number of beneficial,
location-aware solutions:
• Local information pushing. In this case, a
positioning system sends valuable information to a
client based on the client’s location. For example, a
processing plant may push workflow information to
employees regarding operating and safety procedures
relevant to their locations in the plant. The positioning
system tracks each employee and has knowledge of
the floor plan of the facility as well as the procedures.
When an employee steps within a defined perimeter
of a particular area, such as a packaging department,
the positioning system displays on a person’s PDA the
steps on for the work needing to be done in that area.
This significantly increases efficiency and safety by
ensuring that employees follow carefully designed
guidelines.
• Centralized tracking. In
some cases, it’s
advantageous to keep tabs
on the location of objects.
With centralized tracking, a
positioning system
continuously stores and
displays the position
information to an operator.
This leads to more effective
management of assets. As
an example, a hospital can
track patients in an
operating room to analyze and remove bottlenecks in the flow of work to increase
throughput and ultimately the quality of care. Historical workflow data and asset usage
per location can provide
invaluable information in
optimizing a variety of processes.
3 Infrared (IR)
Similar to using RFID, an IR location system determines position of an object based on the
presence of an object, which as mentioned before makes real-time tracking not practical to
implement. Each object being tracked includes a proprietary emitter that periodically
transmits an IR beacon containing a unique code. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye
under most conditions, so people can’t see the beacons. Specialized IR receivers placed
throughout the facility detect the beacons and determine the approximate position of the
object because of the known location of the IR receiver.
An IR system is practically immune to interference, largely because most other wireless
communications systems operate in the RF spectrum far below the frequencies of light.
Because IR signals don’t penetrate opaque materials, such as walls and ceilings, an IR
tracking system must often have several receivers in each room to avoid “losing” tracked
objects as they go around corners and behind office partitions. The orientation of the IR Tag
to the IR reader can also cause problems if for instance the tracked asset itself is blocking
the line of sight view from the IR Tag to the reader. In addition to the proprietary nature of IR
systems, this adds to the cost and complexity of the overall solutions and as with Active
RFID systems, scaling these proprietary solutions can become very costly endeavors.
4 Sensor Networks
In a sensor network solution, clients include a battery-powered radio module that transmits a
RF beacon containing a unique identification number from every five seconds once each
hour. Other types of proprietary sensor networks include those that operate by measuring
the time is takes for a signal to travel between the sensor and the trackec object, commonly
referred to as Time Difference of Arrival ( TDOA ). These systems makes use of modified
Wi-Fi access points or separate sensors installed throughout a facility that receive the
beacons, which are proprietary data packets containing the identity of the client in the case
of TDOA timing information of the packets transmitted. Centralized software then interprets
the position of a particular client using a triangulation method based on differences in signal
strength measurements retrieved from three or more access points or by using a serried of
calculations to interpret the timing information obtained by the proprietary sensors.
Triangulation based methods do not usually produce very accurate positioning results and
are very susceptible to errors caused by walls, furniture and other elements in the
environment This has generally lead to the failure and disappearance of many such systems
off the market.
TDOA systems also rely on having a relatively clear line of sight between the sensor and the
tag. In complex environments such as factories and hospitals, TDOA systems would require
an exceptionally high number of sensors to achieve decent positional accuracy which in turn
may completely destroy the business case for a location tracking system. TDOA systems on
the other hand perform better in outdoor spaces where there are fewer obstructions blocking
the signal path between the sensors and the tags. In this type of environment combining
GPS with WiFi may however be a more cost-effective alternative.
Most of the sensor network tracking solutions allow the access points to carry typical data
traffic associated with Wi-Fi users. This is a strong benefit over the other positioning
5 Ultra-Wideband (UWB)
Similar to most other positioning solutions, UWB positioning systems have proprietary
scanners installed throughout the facility that continuously monitor UWB radio transceivers
attached to clients. UWB systems, however, operate using radio signals having very wide
bandwidth, and position calculations are made based on time-of-arrival techniques instead of
signal strength. This leads to fairly good location accuracy. By reading the time of arrival of a
beacon signal from a specific UWB radio transceiver from three or more scanners, for
instance, the position of the tag and applicable object can be found.
The use of UWB signalling considerably reduces signal impairments, such as RF
interference and multipath propagation, which makes the coexistence with Wi-Fi networks
acceptable. The issue, however, is that UWB makes use of technologies that are not
consistent with standards in use by most companies. Thus, UWB hardware is expensive to
purchase and scale. Furthermore the public use of UWB is still under consideration with the
FCC, which makes the future of this technology unclear.
UWB tags generally transmit several beacons each second, which makes batteries last
approximately one year. Beacon rates are usually adjustable, but, as with a sensor network
solution, the optimum rate is difficult to determine and battery replacement can be costly.
• Ekahau Manager™: Application software for system administrators for creating and
maintaining the positioning model, tracking client devices on a map and analyzing the
positioning accuracy.
In a typical office
environment, the Ekahau
solution can achieve
down to one meter
average accuracy and
two to three meter
accuracy 99% of the time
Accuracy may vary
depending on the
environment type, access
point density, antenna
types and site calibration
density. Unlike other
positioning systems in
the market, the
positioning algorithm of
the Ekahau Positioning
Engine continues to
operate effectively in the
presence of multi-path
issues, complex ““RF
unfriendly environments
where one may have RF
interference, and access
point break-downs.
East Coast
Ekahau, Inc.
1851 Alexander Bell Drive Suite 150
Reston VA 20191
Tel: 1-866-4EKAHAU
Tel: 1 703 860 2850
Fax:1 703 860 2028
Email: Sales-Americas@ekahau.com
Europe
Ekahau, Inc.
Tammasaarenlaituri 3
00180 Helsinki, Finland
Phone: +358 20 743 5910
Fax: +358 20 743 5919
Email: Sales-Europe@ekahau.com
Asia
Ekahau, Inc.
Suite 1002
Chuang’s Tower
30-32 Connaught Road Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 3426 4770
Fax: +852 3426 4061
Email: Sales-Asia@ekahau.com
www.ekahau.com
sales@ekahau.com
info@ekahau.com
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Calibration, Ekahau Rail Tracking and the Ekahau logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ekahau Corporation.
Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of their respective owners.