RTLS - People and asset tracking

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Ricardo — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:01:20 GMT

Thanks guys for all the infos. Much appreciated. -r

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Petter Myhre — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 14:25:49 GMT

I just wanted to add that we have a BLE broadcast mesh on GitHub. It might be useful.

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

NK — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 06:14:44 GMT

Thanks @cocoa.

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

cocoa — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:28:36 GMT

@NK, If the patent is about tracking object trough a mesh network ... no one can patent it because there is prior art and it's a well known technology .

Only an example,

See ALHMIEDAT, T.A. and YANG, S.H., 2008. A ZigBee-based mobile tracking system through wireless sensor networks. International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems, 1 (1), pp.63-70.

or, BluEyes Bluetooth Localization and Tracking : Ei Darli Aung Jonathan Yang Dae-Ki Cho  Mario Gerla University  of  California,  Los Angeles

Type in google for "use bluetooh node to track mobile sensor " and you will discover that you can freely implement your idea.

If you have an idea don't stop, check it, verify it , evolve it, ask around e go on.

-c

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

NK — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:16:12 GMT

@cocoa, thanks for your reply. But 9solutions does seem to have obtained a patent link on the idea of using a network of nodes for obtaining a position through a node. What am I missing here?

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

cocoa — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 13:06:45 GMT

I don't think that using a mesh network and obtaining a position through a mesh node is patentable. This idea is very old and is prior art. Ricardo is right, they have patented only their solutions. A simple search for prior art could answer the question.

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

NK — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:43:12 GMT

Hi @Ricardo - yes, but from your question, you had seemed to want to build exactly the kind of localization solution that 9solutions has patented. To be honest, I have been playing around with a similar idea in my mind but was inhibited when I saw that I might infringe on their patents if I use the idea of node usage for indoor location tracking.

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Ricardo — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:16:20 GMT

Hi @NK, They can patent their solution not the idea of node usage, right? -r

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

NK — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 07:50:29 GMT

Hi @ricardo and @cocoa,

Interesting idea. I did some research and found that 9solutions has patents on the concept of using nodes for location tracking already.

Any thoughts?

-NK

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Ricardo — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 11:13:25 GMT

Marc, if I register on my system that base station is room A, I will have that location, since the beacon will transmit its MAC address, right? Thanks for your time. Ricardo

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Ricardo — Sun, 11 Jan 2015 11:10:32 GMT

Thanks for the infos Cocoa. I will check it through.

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Marc Nicholas — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:20:26 GMT

Conceptually, you'd be able to know if the 'tag' was within range of each base station....yes. But you wouldn't necessarily know it was in a particular room.

Apple's iBeacon implementation is obviously one of the better known 'standards' (not sure I'd really call it that)....and bear in mind that you get only three discrete levels of proximity (immediate, near, far). This is after you've calibrated your device's transmit power @ 1m, too.

cocoa's response below is accurate and valid too.

-m

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

cocoa — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:47:28 GMT

9solutions seems to uses nodes and not beacons. Each node acts as a central and peripheral. It searches for people and assets in its range and transmits the positions and others informations received from ble/nfc tags. A node seems to be a bluetooth low energy mesh node (or self organizing network) using a protocol like CSRMesh .

With a nRF51822 + S130 softdevice and IoT Sdk you should be able to build something similar to 9solutions node and tags except for NFC functionalities.

-c

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Ricardo — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:27:41 GMT

Hi Marc, thanks for the reply. I'm thinking about BLE, no need of real triangulation.

I want to make a solution like this: www.9solutions.com/.../hospital-benefits

It has a node on each room (if I want that kind of accuracy) and some other bluetooth gears.

Can I achieve that with the BLE "beacons"?

Ricardo

RE: RTLS - People and asset tracking

Marc Nicholas — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:54:26 GMT

It really depends what your definition of "good accuracy" is? What protocol stack are you planning on using (custom, Ant or BLE)? Are you trying to achieve true triangulation?

Do bear in mind that BLE "beacons" don't use time-of-flight and are therefore not candidates for true location tracking in 3-space.

-m