June/July 2007

You could soon start to see evidence of a new use of Zigbee low-power wireless technology. So far it has been seen in remote asset monitoring systems such as building maintenance applications, and in transport applications such as transferring tracking data between trailers and tractor units.

Now the technology is being adopted in trials of what is called 'location and citizen services'. Chiefly this term appears to signify tracking and monitoring of vulnerable people in the community.

A scheme called CityBee has been mounted to develop a low-cost wireless metropolitan network for location and citizen services, and is funded as part of the European Sixth Framework Programme. UK-based Triteq, a specialist in telematics and safety-critical electronics, is one of the key partners.

The proposed solution is based on the basic IEEE 802.15.4 radio frequency standard (Zigbee), which provides a licence-free radio frequency band at 2.4GHz and is seen as offering appropriate capabilities for developing a flexible, easily extendable, robust private wireless network.

 

The CityBee project aims to provide low-cost infrastructure, high-performance metropolitan LBS wireless technology to be used by the emergency services for alerts, location and guide-assistance.