Jan/Feb 2006

A tracking system said to offer accuracy comparable to that of GPS systems, but using only GSM mobile phone-based technology, has been launched in the UK under the striking brand name Boomerang Box.

It uses a small self-contained on-board unit with embedded GSM phone capability and a battery life claimed at two years, and is therefore seen as particularly appropriate for trailer tracking, although it would also suitable for tracking vehicles, plant or other assets.

It is being pitched primarily as a stolen vehicle recovery system rather than a management system as such. Users contact a 24-hour call centre to raise the alarm when an item is stolen, and the service can then find it and report back on its location. However, the position can be polled at any time, so it has the potential for wider application.

The first company to adopt the system is believed to be bodybuilder Cartwrights of Altrincham, which is said to be planning to fit the system in the equipment it supplies, working through an existing relationship with Retreve, a telematics system specialist based in Bedfordshire.

 

Behind the Boomerang Box are several organisations with existing experience of mobile communications and tracking. The system itself has been developed by HD Location of Ringwood, Hampshire, which is jointly owned by New Forest Communications and Scottish-based Stream Communications, both specialists in machine-to-machine communication and airtime provision and billing systems.

HD Systems in turn is a supplier of the Matrix location technology developed by Cambridge Positioning Systems, and this proprietary CPS system is the key to the Boomerang product. Matrix makes use of the cell-ID technology that is used by many mobile phone tracking services, but adds extra precision by a time measurement system that allows much more accurate triangulation - or "trilateration", as CPS describes it.

The company claims a typical location accuracy of under 100 metres in urban areas - as good as GPS was before it was tweaked for greater accuracy in the early 2000s. It compares this with a more typical 500m accuracy with some cell-ID only systems. Moreover, CPS says it can maintain the sub-100 metre accuracy across the country, whereas cell-ID can slip to well over 1km in remote areas. CPS says it can be as poor as 10km in some places.

CPS has already had wide-ranging success selling its Matrix technology to third-party providers in many parts of the world, but the Boomerang system is one of the first major applications of its technology in the UK vehicle industry.

CPS's product range also includes Matrix 3G and E-GPS, a combination of Matrix and GPS technology which in theory offers the best of all worlds in pinpoint tracking accuracy.