Location Sensor Limitations and Nokia's New Hybrid LBS

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Written on Thursday, February 12, 2009

We all know the limitations for current Location Sensors. GPS doesn't really work indoors (you need line-of-sight to a satellite). Rfid is usually short range, and requires an expensive infrastructure. WiFi doesn't provide much location information, cause most existing wireless routers don't work that way (most just forward data, they don't add any location information). Bluetooth works in close proximity, but also doesn't provide much location information (you just know it's in the proximity of a certain bluetooth dongle). Both allow for certain methods of calculating the location of a device in range using triangulation, and this also works for GSM networks, using cell tower triangulation.

Incidentally, Google Latitude also works like this. For smartphones Google uses triangulation from cell towers to calculate your current location 'within a radius of 3.5 km'. Having now tried it on a Windows Mobile Device, I can't exactly say 3,5 km is very helpful, unless you wake up in the middle of the night with nothing but a hangover, a Windows Mobile device and no idea whatsoever where on earth you are. For real everyday use, it's, unfortunately, not much help -- but still pretty impressive. Of course this works best in big cities and densely located areas, where you have lots of cell towers and antennas.

So all of the above technologies used for location tracking (GPS, RFID, Bluetooth, WiFi, GSM cell towers) all have their limitations. That's why it makes a lot of sense to develop a Hybrid Location Tracking system, which is what the good people over at Nokia Research Centre in Helsinki have done. From the article:

The LBS (location-based services) concept is rounding out to feature a full indoor service for large buildings and institutions (like hospitals) that improves on current GPS tech. It will most likely aggregate a sensor's location through a combination of RFNokia_prototype_sensor_2ID tags, bluetooth, and NFC to send direct info to your cell phone. The hybrid LBS system should improve upon the current limitations of GPS tech, according to a Nokia research doc: "[GPS devices] don't work well in the structures in which we find ourselves every day, such as offices, shopping malls, hospitals. . . 80 percent of our time is spent indoors."

The current version of the concept includes sensors embedded in a keychain-sized box (see right) that is hitched to individual personal items. The sensor wirelessly sends the location info of each item to a smart phone app  that tracks and manages each item. The distance range of each sensor is around 100 meters for now, but they're working on extending it.

Good stuff! I hope Nokia open this up (at least to a certain extent), cause with all the existing infrastructure in buildings world-wide, a Hybrid system sounds exactly like the solution to the current LBS sensing problems.

Also check out the video below for Nokia Location Sensor:



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1 Comment

  1. Blue Broadcaster | May 22, 2009 3:51 AM

    Here in the UK the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) have published guidelines relating to Bluetooth Marketing which show that it is possible to produce a proximity marketing campaign that is both successful and ethical. The trick is to provide relevant content to consumers that have already declared an interest in the product or service that is being promoted.
    We have just introduced our first Bluetooth Kiosks which require interaction from the consumer to request the downloadable content via a touchscreen before it is sent to their specific handset.
    Initial result have been promising with demand from corporate clients already outstripping our ability to supply these bespoke systems. There is no doubt that consumers are keen to utilize Bluetooth Technology as long as the content that they are being offered is of interest and of genuine value. Several MEPs are using Bluetooth Broadcasting in their campaigns for the upcoming European Elections and have been receiving email and telephone responses from young voters that have traditionally shown little interest in politics. Having been contacted via their mobile phones many more young people are communicating with their representatives for the first time.
    Another prominent campaign in the UK developed by Fantastic Media Ltd.has offered free MP3 files to audiences at music venues with royalties paid to the bands by the event organisers for every download. This extra revenue helps to perpetuate the music industry and is a welcome source of income for lesser known musicians. The future of Bluetooth marketing depends on the ability of the providers to offer good quality content only to those that welcome it. Our biggest UK Network has almost 150 sites in London with a variety of advertisers offering content at different times. Each site is clearly labelled as a Bluetooth Hotspot and advertisers are vetted to ensure that genuine promotional offers are being presented. Each mobile device has a unique MAC address and our campaign reports show that the same devices are regularly receiving new content from the same HotSpots. We welcome the involvement of the DMA and fully support the introduction of their new guidelines that encourage Bluetooth Marketers to show restraint with their campaigns and make the technology more acceptable when used for marketing.

     

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