Real-Time Location Solution (RTLS) has come a long way and has become the ideal solution for location tracking, monitoring, asset tracking, workforce management, personnel monitoring, work-in-progress tracking, and so on. As the technology is becoming more advanced with protocols such as Ultra Wide Band (UWB) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) that are increasingly providing high quality service at competitive pricing, companies prefer RTLS over RFID technology. Over the years UWB RTLS solutions have transformed a lot and the latest generation solutions are making industries smarter.
UWB RTLS functions by transmitting and receiving short duration packets of RF, because of which they have the maximum band width resulting in highest performance accuracy. This makes UWB extremely beneficial for indoor location solution.
When integrated with other protocols such as global positioning systems (GPS), wireless local area networks (WLANs), and Wi-Fi, the UWB solution is able to provide very high quality and reliable services even in outdoor and difficult environments.
In manufacturing industry, smart factories are using UWB RTLS solutions increasingly more to achieve the desired efficiency and productivity. Automotive and aerospace manufacturing players have been using UWB RTLS solutions in their smart factory set ups and have been tremendously benefitted in terms of high visibility, flexibility, lesser waste, and higher profitability. Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail and other industries are also implementing UWB RTLS increasingly. UWB RTLS is being preferred for innovative and emerging applications in retail, sports, livestock management, and others.
As the technology can aptly trace and locate assets to closest proximity than the alternate technology protocols used for RTLS, companies are able to innovate upon the technology to make it robust and more useful for a wider range of applications and environments. Companies such as TimeDomain, DecaWave, Zebra Technologies, UbiSense, BeSpoon, and BlinkSight are offering cutting-edge RTLS solutions based on UWB. DecaWave’s UWB chip can be integrated into devices by OEMs to make devices smarter.
BeSpoon, with its SpoonPhone has already demonstrated that UWB technology can be successfully integrated into a smartphone. This will result into endless options for innovative end-user applications based on UWB smartphones.
With the technology advancements and reduction in the cost of deploying the technology, UWB RTLS is going to see a high growth across applications and industries. Combining RTLS with other technologies will make the solution robust and will offer an advanced solution to fulfill the end users’ needs.
