October 14, 2005
The RTLS market
The RTLS market is segmented by the companies present in it into two categories. One segment uses the 802.11 components and the other one uses the unlicensed components that are spectrum based. The technology used for determining location affects the type of vertical markets that a company wishes to target.
AeroScout, PanGo Networks, Radianse, Ekabu, etc are companies that are active in the RTLS market. The early RTLS products were based on the WLAN technology, the emergence and ratification of IEEE 802.11 has led to vendors basing their solutions on the open standard. There is direct communication between the 802.11 tags and access points (APs). The legacy hardware based on WLAN technology can communicate only with the help of supplementary reader hardware. This gives the 802.11 systems a significant cost advantage as hardware costs increase with the area covered.
The location determining is done using two techniques, i.e. TDOA and RSSI. TDOA stands for Time difference of arrival and it is the time difference between signals that reach the AP. RSSI stands for Received signal strength indication and is the strength of the signal from the device as measured by the access point. RSSI is useful in walled areas such as hospitals and warehouses and TDOA finds application in outdoor environments like aeroplane hangars and shipyards. Rightly used, these technologies can lead to improved performance and reduced development costs.
AeroScout has concentrated on providing an end-to-end asset tracking solution to vertical markets. The solutions are either proprietary or partnership-based and offer the same proprietary tag which can be used with different location engines. With the help of its partnership with Cisco and its own AeroScout Engine 3.0, the company is able to meet the requirements of both indoor and outdoor RTLS applications. AeroScout also facilitates perimeter security and gating applications by means of its AeroScout Exciter hardware.
Ekahau is an 802.11 RTLS vendor that provides solutions for asset and people tracking. Its products and services are used in sectors such as healthcare and logistics. The Ekahau Position Engine 3.1 uses proprietary location technology that can achieve an accuracy of up to 3.5 feet as compared to the Cisco location engine, which may have a variance of 20 feet. Therefore, it finds increased application in item-level tracking as compared to zone-level tracking. The higher accuracy of the Ekahau Position Engine 3.1 should give it a competitive advantage as the density of tracked items per unit area increases.
PanGo Networks is better prepared than most vendors for the integration of campus-based location technologies into the IT infrastructure. PanGo provides an RTLS system and an application platform for back-end integration. The PanOS platform provides features such as device management, location technology, console management, etc. PanOS is a middleware platform that can provide location information to diverse applications across an enterprise and even across RTLS technologies.
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