12 December Indoor Tracking of People and Objects – This Is How It Works December 12, 2015 By Eva Gaudlitz positioning technology |indoor tracking|, |server based| 0 indoor tracking solutionsIndoor location tracking and indoor positioning of people and objects are getting more relevant for companies from various industries. There are two ways to realize it: client based and server based tracking. Learn more about the differences and which method is suitable for your use case. Functionality of indoor location tracking Client based tracking means that the position of a person is detected on a mobile device (mostly a smartphone). An app calculates the position based on beacons or WiFi access points distributed in the room – the latter doesn’t work with iOS devices. When applying server based tracking, the people and objects you want to track are equipped with a Beacon (BLE) or a smartphone. This transmitter sends out its ID via Bluetooth Low Energy to small receivers which are distributed in the room. infsoft develops so-called “Locator Nodes”. They only have to be connected to the power supply and one of them needs internet connection. The detected IDs and field strengths are transmitted to a cloud server where they are converted into geographic coordinates. A user friendly web interface displays the devices in a digital map. It is also possible to process the data with other infsoft systems, for example in order to create anonymized motion profiles or heat maps. Learn more about client based and server based indoor positioning and our indoor tracking solutions. Use cases for indoor tracking Client based tracking is good if you want a back channel over which you can send coupons or information. The requirement is that all people who should be tracked have an up-to-date smartphone. Server based tracking is perfect for asset tracking. For example if you want to determine the position of goods and equipment. Geofencing can be used for theft protection. For server based tracking of people smartphone and app are not necessary. A discreet and cheap beacon in the jacket pocket combined with locator nodes is enough for positioning. Beacons can also help to find people inside a building in case of emergency. To make sure employees always have the receiver with them, it can be integrated into an ISO card. If you have questions concerning indoor tracking, please contact us. Get the 31 pages white paper for free Perfect, when you are new to the topic. Download Related Asset Tracking and Analytics: Hardware for Indoor Tracking Indoor Tracking, that is locating persons and objects inside buildings, is in high demand. There are multiple application scenarios. "Indoor GPS" - Techniques for Indoor Positioning Without Using GPS Positioning and navigation using smartphones are very beneficial in everyday life. Where would we be without the friendly voice of google maps which shows us the way wherever we are? But, wait a moment, everywhere is not quite correct. GPS reception quickly reaches its limits, for example in tunnels, parking garages, under a cloud cover, in the forest, in urban canyons, inside buildings – in brief: GPS driven navigation does not work where there is no visual contact to several GPS satellites. And there is another problem: With GPS it is not possible to determine the floor level a device is located on. But there are some possibilities to put such an “indoor GPS” into practice. Indoor Navigation & Indoor Positioning Using Bluetooth During the last couple of years, there was a lot going on on the Bluetooth market. The technology itself is not new; the functionality of Bluetooth has been well-known since the 1990s. But it was only in recent years that whole new application scenarios have occurred, originating from the energy saving Bluetooth version BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth Smart). Apple with its iBeacons and just recently Google with its Eddystone Beacons have got the market moving furthermore. Indoor Navigation, Indoor Positioning and Location Based Services Using VLC (Visible Light Communication) In the recent blog posts we have already introduced the most common methods for indoor positioning: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Both are already being used in various scenarios and have proved to be successful. VLC (visible light communication) is a new, interesting method which is about to reach market maturity. Indoor Tracking Using Beacons or RFID – What Are the Differences? Frequently, clients or prospective customers ask us which tracking hardware we would recommend for indoor positioning: beacons or RFID. As always, it depends on the requirements and circumstances on site. However, in most cases the decision is pro beacons, because RFID is not suitable for extensive indoor positioning but rather for selective object identification. Internet of Things and Indoor Positioning – This Is How You Can Profit from Combining Them The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the major technology trends of the past years. The main difference between IoT and “the Internet” which we have known for 25 years now is that devices, not people, communicate with each other. Showing 0 Comment Add New CommentReply CommentNameEmailWebsiteCommentsHtmlPreviewb i u quote Notify me when new comments are addedSave Comment