The LI 15 Minute Update: Short Conversations with Geo Technology and Data Providers – Part 1

By Adena Schutzberg , Directions Magazine

Russ Chandler from Ubisense gave me a bit of a tour beyond the indoor location demonstration that launched the conference. When I asked what's ahead, he was quick to point to embedding sensors into building infrastructures. That way, the challenges of setting up, tuning and then removing sensors that his and the Fish team faced at our location would be moot. In fact, Ubisense partners are out trying to convince venues such as convention centers to consider such investments.

Mostly, however, Chandler wanted to share the success of its tag in automobile manufacturing. Manufacturing is one place where UWB uptake and ROI have blossomed. The most impressive implementation involved the time saved by workers on the production line of a European automaker. Building a vehicle involves its passage through some 150 stations. In the past, workers used bar code scanners to confirm a task had been completed. That meant picking up the scanner, swiping it over the code, putting it down and picking up a tool. Now, the tools carry RFID tags and, in a sense, "confirm" the task completion on their own. That, in one case, means a task has dropped from taking 56 second to 50 seconds. That in turn can mean greater productivity on the line and more cars made per day. Ideally, such tagging also enables the prevention of errors, but if not, they are found and then fixed in place, another time saver.

Link to full article

Webinar - Location Driven Solutions in Automotive Production

How Ubisense Location Driven Solutions for automotive manufacturers deliver improved productivity, margins and quality though error proofing and reduced manual processing.

Presenter: Charles Sturman, VP Marketing at Ubisense

29th April 2008

8:00 a.m. mountain time, 3:00 p.m. UK, 4:00 p.m. Europe

Register now: webinar@ubisense.net

After registering for the webinar, you`ll receive an email confirmation with the log in details.

Please visit this page regularly as we will continue to deliver fresh and relevant information via this webinar forum that may be of interest to you now and in the future.

Precise Real-time Location for Logistics

New Ubisense product provides transparency and high availability

Cambridge UK– 11th March 2008 - Ubisense, the world leading provider of precise real-time location systems (RTLS) using ultra-wideband (UWB) announces its focus on solutions for process optimisation within the logistics industry.

The Ubisense series 7000 product line launched last year is already enabling considerable improvements in security, transparency, quality and availability for many logistics operators. “We have multiple applications running in major logistics centres which are demonstrating real process improvements to a level that has not been seen before”, explains Ubisense executive Terry Phebey. “We are seeing Returns on Investment (ROIs) in less than 12 months for some of these applications”, Phebey added.

The system tracks items to a precision of 15cm in 3D and in real time. This provides transparency of material flow both by direct tracking of goods and by indirectly tracking the movement of equipment used in the transportation process, e.g. ground conveyors, tools, ID scanners or fork lifts, thus. By combining existing barcode or RFID scanning, the system can enable automated management of movements of goods in manual warehouses without the installation of further software. Within such applications the Fork Lift Trucks (FLTs) are continuously tracked as they move goods around the warehouse. The combination of conventional pallet ID scanning with FLT tracking enables automated storage of the goods’ locations on the floor and within three dimensional storage racks. ”The system can also be deployed in larger warehouses with full Warehouse Management Systems”, says Phebey. “We can integrate directly with these standard WMS to deliver storage location data and to analyse process flows and enable process optimisation.”

The Ubisense system consists of three key parts:

1. Battery-operated tags transmit UWB RF impulses (location signals) in the frequency range 6 to 8.5 Gigahertz. The very short, precisely timed radio pulses provide a reliable and accurate location measurement even in difficult environments such as those storing large amounts of liquids and metals. Radio multipath effects often disturb conventional radio communication systems in such environments, but have a lesser effect on the Ubisense technology which leads to a much more reliable location measurement when compared to alternative technologies.
   
2. Location sensors mounted around the facility receive and process the tag signals and communicate the results back to client software via industry standard IT networking.
3. The location data is recorded, edited and visualised by the Ubisense Location Platform software and presented via unique applications which, for example, can log automatically the insertion and removal of goods to and from the warehouse storage racking.

The Ubisense Series 7000 product line is CE and FCC certified for license exempt use in both the EU and North America.

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Location Intelligence 2008: You Asked for It, You Got It

GLENCOE, IL--(Marketwire - March 24, 2008) - Direction Media has built this year's Location Intelligence Conference on the specific needs of its readers and past conference attendees. Readers come to Directions Magazine for many reasons, but number one on their list, based on a recent survey, is to learn about new technologies. Past Location Intelligence attendees articulated a strong preference for presentations from technology users about their successes, that is, making or saving money for their organizations.

Conference Chairman and Directions Media Vice Publisher Joe Francica explains how the conference committee listened and responded to those content preferences. "We wanted new ways to address those two topics. How could we introduce new technologies, not just with presentations, but with a hands-on experience? How could we get top-notch speakers from world-class private and public organizations to share their insights? The answer was to recognize the technologies our readers wanted to know more about and work with partners to handpick speakers with significant successes tied directly to geospatial technology."

The result is two brand new features for 2008. Directions Media is teaming up with Ubisense to give attendees hands-on experience with that company's indoor location technology. Ubisense will be featured during the opening session to demonstrate location-based social networking on April 28th at 2:00 p.m. Furthering our exploration of new technologies, at this year's event Directions Media welcomes a variety of new exhibitors including Roadware, a logistics company that provides location intelligence technologies to place digital video images and infrastructure data within transportation networks; Quova, an Internet Protocol positioning solutions company; MapJack, a company that provides street-view imagery solutions; and thincSoft, which provides "visual intelligence" for retailers, just to name a few.

If discovering new geospatial and related technologies, plus a roadmap for using geospatial technologies to make or save money are of interest to you, join us at Location Intelligence 2008, April 28-30 at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, California.

About the Location Intelligence Conference

Now in its fifth year, the Location Intelligence Conference serves as a forum for discussing the integration of location-related products and services with enterprise computing and consumer products. The conference is hosted by Directions Media, the global leader in collectively covering all aspects of location technology: geographic information systems (GIS), location intelligence, mapping portals and location-based services (LBS).

Precise Location for Puccini

Audio Imaging and Real-time Location System Enhances Opera Experience at the Royal Albert Hall

The Ubisense Precise Real-time Location System already deployed in manufacturing and logistics has found application in live audio animation. Collaborating with Out Board Electronics, the companies delivered a breakthrough enhancement in public audio performance showcased for the first time this month at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Cambridge UK – 4^thMarch 2008 - In March 2008, Raymond Gubbay’s production of Tosca will be performed in-the-round at London’s Royal Albert Hall featuring a ground-breaking sound automation technique which combines Out Board’s TiMax Audio Imaging delay matrix with the Ubisense Ultra-Wideband (UWB) RTLS solution. The combined product will also be made available by Out Board as the TiMax Talent Tracker system. By tracking the position of individual actors and processing the audio feed from their radio microphones in real time the sound image is steered to give each audience member the impression of localised audio.

Each actor wears a small Ubisense location tag which communicates with an array of six sensors mounted on a lighting bar running around the Circle balcony-front. The actors are all individually miked and the sound sent back to the TiMax DSP matrix audio processor. The TiMax system uses the Ubisense system to define on-stage spatial localisation zones which correspond to pre-defined “Image Definitions” (pre-programmed level/delay instructions to the TiMax DSP matrix). By applying proprietary audio algorithms to the sound, the system can place the actor’s audio image in the appropriate zone on stage.

The system can easily follow up to 60 actors on a single stage depending on refresh rate and the TiMax delay matrix can independently localise up to 16 actors simultaneously in the same scene across 32 different Image Definitions. Larger arena productions and more complex spaces can utilize a series of interlinked cells of TTT sensors networked together to cover the whole area.

Out Board Director, Robin Whittaker, said “We had wanted to develop such a solution for several years but could not find the right partner. This application demands absolute precision and reliability, something which only Ubisense is able to provide. So we were finally able to bring the concept to market.”

A key requirement was to provide a simple user interface for set up, control and monitoring of the system since the solution must integrate within the existing sound engineers’ console.

“Because the Ubisense solution integrates so well with industry standard technology such as the Microsoft .NET environment, with well defined interfaces and APIs this enabled a rapid development and allowed us to meet the timescales for opening of the new Opera.“ Whittaker added.

Charles Sturman, VP Marketing at Ubisense commented “Although Ubisense has seen a great deal of traction in the manufacturing and logistics industries since the launch of our new product last year, we are keen to see how the technology can meet the needs of customers in other markets too. We are really excited about the potential for TiMax Talent Tracker and our on-going partnership with Out Board in this space.”

Link

Active RFID, Will Rise From 12.7% of the Total RFID Market This Year to 26.3% in 2017, Meaning a Huge $7.07 Billion Market States Latest Report

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c84206) has announced the addition of Active RFID and Sensor Networks 2008-2018 to their offering.

This report comprehensively analyzes the technologies, players and markets with detailed ten year forecasts, including tag numbers, unit prices and interrogator numbers and prices. Details of 75 active RFID implementations are given along with over 100 suppliers and full technology analysis -- from printed batteries to Wi-Fi RFID to UWB tags. We have constructed ten year forecasts usefully segmented by frequency, application, territory, etc, and illustrated by dozens of tables and figures.

The active RFID market will grow to over 11 times its present size by 2017, so whether a user or supplier, you need to keep up with this under-reported subject or get left behind.

Link to article

Ubisense Manufacturing Location System

Complete Manufacturing Process Visibility
Ubisense Manufacturing Location System (MLS) provides the final piece of visibility and control in your manufacturing operations. Track and locate product, tools and materials in real-time to less than 1ft precision inside your manufacturing facility.

Examples

• Auto manufacturer removes barcode scanning from torque tool process eliminating 150,000 scans per day and minimizing manual errors.
• Auto parts manufacturer requires instant audit of all equipment for Sarbanes Oxley compliance. Eliminates cost and errors of manual audit.
• Auto manufacturer has limited visibility of production process. Ubisense MLS provides complete visibility raising alerts when production schedules are slipping reducing delays and improving turn time.

Benefits

• Eliminate search time for equipment and product.
• Real-time dashboard of Work in Process (WIP) status and preemptive alerts for schedule delays.
• Mapping and analysis of processes over time to determine bottlenecks or areas for improvement.
• Automate the remaining manual tasks in the production workflow through precise tracking of WIP, tooling and machinery.

For more information please contact Ubisense at (720) 249 4149 or email enquries@ubisense.net.

High tech for horses

A startup uses RFID technology to better train show riders.

By Mina Kimes
February 15 2008
Fortune Small Business

ALLENTOWN, N.J. (FORTUNE Small Business) -- As Heidi Lemack-Beck rides her horse Jazzmine around the arena at Rhythm & Blues Stables in Allentown, N.J., six pairs of electronic eyes watch every move of these skilled competitors. Heidi quickens the pace of the 16-year-old mare from a trot to a canter, and the cameras swivel to track them - or rather to track the cracker-sized RFID tag stuck to the top of Heidi's helmet.

Link

Immersive experience solutions for trade shows and events

Fish Software and Ubisense deliver immersive experience solutions for the trade show and event space based on precise real-time location

Denver, CO & Carrollton,TX – 12th February, 2008

Denver, CO - Ubisense and Fish Software announce a strategic partnership for development, distribution and support of the Ubisense RTLS (Real Time Location Solution) in the trade show and event industry. Fish has pioneered the use of RTLS as a marketing and measurement tool and has been delivering unique attendee tracking and measurement solutions to the event space for the past three years. Under this agreement, Fish will become the exclusive reseller of the Ubisense UWB (Ultra Wideband) location tracking system for the event attendee tracking and measurement marketplace in North America.

Fish has been working with Ubisense to deliver numerous attendee tracking solutions for both private shows and US Army Recruiting events. According to Fish’s President, Michael Gilvar, this enhanced partnership will empower Fish to target larger events including business-to-business and consumer oriented venues. “Ubisense has the most flexible platform available which allows us to dynamically configure the behaviour of the tags to accommodate the variable needs of our clients” says Gilvar, adding that “this flexibility will allow us to support a wide range of events from small to mega-shows with 100,000 plus attendees”.

Jay Cadman, Vice President Sales, Americas, is excited about the potential this partnership represents. “Matching the Ubisense advanced RTLS Technology with Fish’s experience in applying this technology to the event space will deliver new solutions that quantifiably change the way companies market and measure results at trade shows,” comments Mr. Cadman.

Link

Advanced child security system at Baroue, Kuwait launched by MS Retail in association with TagStone

Cambridge UK, Kuwait – 29 January 2008 TagStone and Ubisense collaborated to create an accurate, reliable and secure solution for MS Retail’s flagship Baroue, the regions first one-stop-shop for children and parents, enabling parents to monitor their children while they play. Built upon Ubisense’s proven precision RTLS system, parents are able to monitor their children in a playground area and can check the whereabouts and activities of at info kiosks around the store.

Opened on the 20th of September 2007 at the newly developed Avenues Mall, Kuwait - Baroue features a giant Sea Serpent playground the length of four London busses, and is over 40ft high. The playground features straight and spiral slides, a magical harp, sand pit and jungle gym.

Children in the Sea Serpent are supervised by Baroue’s trained staff who monitor their play activities. The children are provided with a wristband incorporating the Ubisense location tag, and their parents receive a “ticket” with a unique identifier matching the child’s tag.

As parents browse Baroue they are able to visit a number of info-kiosks and using the unique identifier ticket, can view their children at play. The selected child is highlighted on a 3 Dimensional map of the playground and the parents may request camera views of their child at play, which follow the child as they move.

The service is provided by MS Retail who own and operate Baroue. Explaining how parents prefer an environment that is safe for their kids whilst being practical, and convenient Fahad Al-Mutawa, Chairman and CEO of MS Retail stated; “We have already seen real benefits in terms of customer satisfaction and time spent in-store. We have had positive feedback from customers and children who have become regulars”

Ubisense provided the RTLS sensor network, tags and its distributed Spatial Location Platform software which forms the heart of the system. TagStone developed the software for check-in counters and info-kiosks. Installation and project management was carried out by both companies in partnership. Installation started in August last year and the system has been in commercial operation since November 2007.

“We are very pleased with this first installation of a real time location based solution and are excited about the new opportunities which our partnership with Ubisense will allow us to offer our customers in the Middle East” added Faisal Al Gharabally, CEO of TagStone.

About TagStone

TagStone is the leading provider of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solutions in the Middle East with customers across multiple industries. Specialized in Design, Engineering and Implementation of RFID technology based end-to-end solutions the Dubai (UAE) based System Integrator offers a comprehensive portfolio ranging from Item and Asset Management to People Tracking. www.tagstone.com

About Baroue

Sprawling across an extensive 6500 square meters, ‘Baroue’ – MS Retail’s flagship store in Kuwait - houses a wide spectrum of over 20,000 different products ranging from clothes and accessories to toys and stationery, focusing wholly on children - from newborns to 14-year-olds - in a vibrant and engaging environment. The unparalleled retail concept – the first of its kind in the region – offers kids a world of choice through various brands such as Baby Baroue, Baroue Kids, Baroue Toys, Baroue Maternity and Club b.me (for tweens). Every detail of the store’s architecture and design has been tailored to meet a kid’s convenience. Apart from making shopping exciting for kids through memorable in-store experiences, Baroue also offers recreational features such as a Café and Juice Bar, Baroue Photo – a fun photo studio, Salon Baroue and an exciting year-round calendar of educational and informative activities and workshops.