Jan/Feb 2004

If you think it's pretty impressive to be able to track people to the nearest few metres by means of GPS, you'll be positively amazed by the latest "in-building" tracking and tracing systems.

Within a Wi-Fi (wireless networking) hotspot, for instance, it's now possible to pinpoint specific users' locations down to about 2 metres - providing they are willing participants, that is. That's the promise behind the latest technology from Appear Networks, anyway. And if you think that's good going, you'll be intrigued by a tracking system being developed by a Cambridge company, Ubisense. It aims to track people within buildings to an accuracy of 15 centimetres.

Why would you want to track people with such precision anyway? In the case of the hotspots, the thinking is that network operators could build up individual user profiles, and therefore offer different services depending on their age, native language or job function, for example. It's yet a further refinement of the philosophy behind location-based services.

Ubisense, which is concentrating on applications such as healthcare rather than on the general consumer and business markets, sees numerous applications for its much more precise form of tracking - particularly if it is linked to other technology. For instance, it says that if a hospital worker is using a tablet PC to prompt interaction with a patient, the tracking system could vary the "script" according to which patient's records were involved, or the type and detail of information delivered.

These are two quite different technologies, of course, developed for very different purposes; but they do highlight the emergence of very accurate tracking as a realistic proposition.

Appear Networks' latest APS 4.1 contextual wireless service system is based on interaction between mobile wireless devices and a fixed local wireless networking infrastructure. The company offers various possible uses of the system. It suggests that a congress venue might, for example, provide special messages relevant to conferences planned throughout the day. A restaurant or hotel manager could make different information available at breakfast, lunch or dinner time. In education, documents relating to a lecture or examination could be made dynamically available to students present in the relevant hall.

Ubisense is developing a rather more specific local positioning technology, or LPS, which involves real-time "in-building" location and tracking of people and assets. It uses a kind of radio-frequency tag the size of a credit card to identify the object (but not an RFID tag in the accepted sense). Location is worked out by ultra wide band (UWB) radio-location technology, which has been evolved by a company called Cambridge Consultants Limited (CCL). This apparently works very well in relatively limited areas.

The team behind the project were previously involved with AT&T and the Laboratory for Communication Engineering at the University of Cambridge, and are also working with DEGW, a consultancy that specialises in workplace processes and environment.

They have now appointed C-MAC MicroTechnology, a Solectron subsidiary, to manufacture the system. Production of evaluation prototypes started in December, and units were being delivered to early adopters and partners in January. Volume production is scheduled to begin in April this year.