Real-Time Location System
What is RTLS?
The full name of RTLS is Real-time Location System and includes several automated identifications (auto-ID) technologies that use wireless signals to determine the precise location of tagged assets or people. RTLS systems include transponder tags that transmit a long-range signal up to few hundred meters in advertising mode at regular intervals, location sensors that receive and process these advertised tag signals, and a location appliance that collects and correlates the data. In contrast, “passive” radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have a very short range (maximum up to twenty meters), and only read the tags when a reader is near.
How does RTLS work?
Anything being tracked by a RTLS has a tag affixed to it which can be located by the network system. The tag or location aware device is integrated with a unique identity and sometimes additional information about the object on which it is attached or representing. The information stored on these devices along with real time positioning of the object is then communicated through an Internet system to the cloud or other business systems.
What is an RTLS Sensor?
RTLS Sensors are usually data loggers and are used to monitor the physical environment of an object. Location sensors receive and process tag signals and common sensors include temperature and humidity.
What is the difference between RTLS and GPS?
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provide the real time location in the outdoors, through the communication between the satellites and the satellite receivers one is carrying. GPS receivers are highly complex, costly, and require significantly more power than RTLS tags, and lack fine-grained accuracy.
What are the types of RTLS Tags?
BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) is the preferred system used in the RTLS infrastructure. Bluetooth 5.0 and above delivered three main advancements over previous generations when introduced in 2016:
– Twice the speed
– Four times the range
– Eight times the advertising capacity
– Direction finding
The revolutionary direction-finding feature that was introduced in Bluetooth 5.1 combines proximity and positioning data to identify approximate physical location down to a centimetre (0.39 inches).
Ultra-wideband (UWB) RTLS tags have accuracy greater than one foot, and consume minimal power.
Widely used, the above two systems create a wireless IOT network to enable RTLS and Condition Monitoring.
What are the benefits of RTLS?
Using RTLS technology gives specialized teams complete visibility of the physical location and current status of equipment.
RTLS eliminates the need to spend a lot of dollars in creating a network environment using cables and switches, coupled with sensors.
Deployment of the wireless RTLS network is much faster and the system is more flexible than the traditional network systems.