Positioning technology hidden in the automatic following luggage in the Internet of Things

Although there is concern about the Internet of Things being hyped, the Internet of Things has become a reality, with billions of IoT products shipped each year. The benefits of wireless communications, sensors and embedded processing solutions cannot be underestimated. In fact, because of the ability to remotely view "what happened" and "when did things happen?", this led to a series of new products and applications that increased the efficiency of the business and improved our daily lives.

However, joining us can also know exactly where "what happened?" or "Which specific location of an object?", what would be the result? Take a look at the home interconnect solution. Today, home interconnect solutions offer limited automation capabilities, allowing users to program interconnected devices and control them with their mobile phones. But the house doesn't know where the user is, so the process is still manual.

However, a new positioning technology with an accuracy of less than a centimeter makes this vision a reality, and your house can automatically control your connected devices based on your location. At present, the current high-precision indoor positioning technologies mainly include the following: Bluetooth positioning technology, ultra-wideband UWB positioning technology, RFID positioning technology, and WLAN positioning technology. Decawave, a wireless speaker system, is based on UWB's positioning technology.

"UWB's strengths are high positioning accuracy, security, cost effectiveness, low power consumption and transmission speed." Decawave Vice President of Marketing Mickael Viot told MicroNet. “Our high-precision positioning technology can achieve 50 to 100 times higher accuracy than WiFi/Bluetooth positioning.”

The principle of ranging of UWB technology TOF ranging method belongs to two-way ranging technology, which mainly uses the flight time between two asynchronous transceivers to measure the distance between nodes and then locate. Indoor positioning is to locate four base stations with known coordinates. The person or device that needs to be positioned carries the positioning tag. The tag transmits pulses according to a certain frequency, and continuously performs ranging with four base stations of known positions. The algorithm determines the position of the label.

To give customers a sense of the possibilities, Decawave has designed a wireless speaker system that automatically adapts to your location, providing the best audio balance in real time, while built-in LEDs create custom light based on positioning. surroundings.

Mickael Viot explained that Decawave's chip sends a wireless signal to the signal reader, which determines the chip position by calculating the transmission time of the signal. The longer the time, the farther the distance is, the error is no more than 10 cm, and the farthest transmission distance is 300 meters (direct view distance, non-direct view distance of 40 meters), the chip power consumption is very low, the battery can support for several years, and can recognize the precise position of any object, person or place, the reliability is more than 99%. “With the use of the Inertial Measurement Module (IMU), the accuracy can be further increased to 1 cm. More than 2.5 million products have been used in this industry, in industrial real-time positioning systems, automotive entry systems, smart homes, drones. And the positioning of people and objects in the motion analysis system. The combined communication capability of the DW1000 chip is up to 6.8Mbps, which is very suitable for wireless sensor networks (WSN) and the Internet of Things."

It is commendable to improve our living efficiency and comfort, but not at the expense of safety. Unfortunately, the Internet of Things is relatively backward in this respect, and the number of hacked wireless devices is increasing. Primarily because hackers can access devices remotely or wirelessly (no physical access is required). What would happen if an object could know the location of other objects that were trying to communicate with it? If the other party is not within the preset distance or range of positions, they can refuse to communicate with the other party, what will be the result? This concept is called "location-based security," that is, "location determines everything."

Turning this concept into reality faces technical challenges because it requires accurate, reliable, and absolutely true location information. For example, Mickael Viot's solution in this area of Decawave's technology includes that when you get closer, your phone can automatically and safely turn on your laptop and lock it when you are away. This is just the beginning, your phone will soon become your security key, open the door for you, open the door to the office, start the car, etc., no need for a key.

On average 80% of the time is indoors, 80% of mobile phone use and data connection are used indoors, and indoor positioning technology undoubtedly usher in an unprecedented huge market. On the other hand, in the era of mobile internet, the demand for micro-positioning technology in the medical, factory automation, logistics and retail industries is everywhere. According to Mickael Viot, Decawave's technology is currently available in three applications, including consumer electronics, automotive and industrial. "In the field of consumer electronics, home interconnection, retail, home robots and other applications have already shipped products, TV, set-top boxes, AR / VR and other applications are already in design-in, and then will open up the market in the sports field. In the car Applications in the field, including smart car unlocking and valet parking, are already in design-in. In the industrial sector, building control, healthcare, factory automation, mining and other fields have been shipped, while in agriculture, security, and robotics. Design-in has begun in the application market."

Mickael Viot revealed that a remote control demo that can remotely control multiple electronic devices such as computers, lighting, and televisions will be available in the third quarter. The remote controller knows the location of the device to be controlled and can be controlled with just a press.

Finally, an interesting application is added. Recently, a popular one can automatically follow the owner's suitcase bag, which is the use of Decawave's positioning chip.