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April 19, 20213 min read

Custom Indoor Location Solutions

  

Do you have a communications problem that you just can’t seem to solve with off-the-shelf solutions? When you need a unique solution, Tait can offer Client Specific Development. Our engineers will work with you to find the best possible solutions that precisely fulfil your requirements, adhere to your constraints, and fit within your budget. This time, we take a look at a custom Indoor Location Solution.

In our previous blog post on custom solutions, we discussed a custom noise cancelling microphones for vehicles. In this blog, we’ll discuss a custom Indoor Location Solution the Tait Client Specific Development (CSD) team developed. Want to know more? See all our posts on custom solutions.

The ability to track where your staff and assets are at any time is important during normal operations, and during emergencies it can quickly become vital. Location services give companies an edge by enabling them to track and secure staff and valuable assets during day-to-day operations, and quickly respond to any emergencies.

Most of the location services we’re familiar with use satellite navigation systems such as GPS and GLONASS to provide us with geolocation information. However, some organizations operate in environments that aren’t covered by satellites, making it more difficult for those organizations to keep track of where their people and assets are located.

A Custom Indoor Location Solution

In mines, tunnels, secure buildings and correctional facilities, it’s vital to know the location of your workers to keep them safe. To provide a European company specializing in solving traffic problems with a way to determine locations inside a tunnel, the Tait CSD team developed a custom indoor location solution. 

How it works
The solution combines custom firmware in Tait radios with Bluetooth® Low Energy beacons strategically placed at equal distances across the tunnel. These beacons all have unique IDs that correspond to their specific locations in the tunnel. 

To pick up the unique IDs of the Bluetooth® beacons, custom firmware was created to enable portable radios to scan for the beacons. The radios are programmed to know what Bluetooth® IDs to look for, and use a beacon’s signal strength to determine how close they are to those particular beacons.

The information received by the radios is then transmitted over the radio network back to the control room via timed reports, staff can poll the radios to ask for their location, or workers can press an emergency button that sends the location data to the control room. 

In the control room a central mapping application then determines the exact location of the radios based on the location information provided by the Bluetooth® beacons. CSD also added some clever functionality that allows the radios to switch between GPS and indoor locations when GPS is detected and Bluetooth® is not, and vice versa.

All Elements are Highly Customizable

The above description presents just a small sample of the possibilities an indoor location solution developed by Tait CSD can offer. It can be customized and tailored to your specific use case.

  • You can also have a portable radio be the beacon and the bluetooth devices be receivers
  • The solution described in the above use case was designed to work on digital networks, however, it could be extended to work on analog networks 
  • It could be integrated with GeoFencing zones to enhance worker safety with predetermined automated actions

The CSD team is always looking at ways to improve these solutions. Right now, they are developing a second iteration of the solution for use in multi-storied buildings to prevent equally distanced sensors on different floors from sending conflicting data. 

The Tait Client-Specific Development Service

The above solution is just one example of the capabilities of the Tait Client Specific Development Service. Do you need a totally different solution?

The CSD team can offer hardware and software customization to create a solution that exactly meets your unique requirements.

Whether its new software or hardware based on existing Tait products, integrations this with new or existing third-party equipment, or completely new radio products – talk to the CSD team to see how they can help.

They will work with you to design communications system elements that works for you, taking into account your constraints and available budget. We often hear our willingness and ability to integrate and customize our products sets us apart from other vendors, and we’re proud to be able to provide this service to our customers.


What are Your Challenges?

Our engineers are always keen for a new challenge. So what are your specific needs? We’d like to hear from you, to see if we can create a unique solution for you. Get in touch to find out how Tait can help.

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