August 2, 2005 21:45 - Different Positioning Systems
We all know GPS (Global Positioning System). Here we will describe several other positioning systems. Some existing for many years, others only applied in trials. Read more...
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August 4, 2005 17:03 - The opposite RFID tracking
Normally in a RFID tracking system the readers are fixed and the position of the tags is calculated. (See this article) But it can be used the other way round.
Vorwerk Carpet from Germany has developed a carpet with passive RFID tags incorporated in the back, invisible from above. The position of each tag is exactly known. This "Smart Carpet" enables robots equipped with an RFID reader to navigate automatically and intelligently across the floor. Robots of this type can be deployed for example as an automatically controlled transport unit or a self-propelling automated cleaner.
A reader in the robot, moving over the carpet can read the tags across a distance of 10cm. Each tag has its own unique ID number, so the robot knows exactly its own position on the carpet. The robot can also store date and time information on the RFID tags. This opens up the possibility for a simple form of service control.
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August 17, 2005 19:12 - Not yet heard of xMax?
Joseph Bobier, the inventor, worked years in stealth on it at xG Technology, LLC. in Florida. After running an initial test using pager spectrum in May, the company plans a follow-up public demonstration of xMax in September, 2005. The demonstration will use one base station to span Fort Lauderdale and Miami, covering a radius of 15 miles, with a data rate of 40 Mbits/s, all provided by less than one Watt, using the unlicensed 700 MHz ISM band. A reference design will be available in November, when the company officially makes the technology public.
But what is it?
It is a hybrid technology that allows broadband transmissions on sub 1GHz frequency bands over great distances and with very little power.
What is the principle?
A narrow band (6 kHz) carrier wave is used to synchronize the transmitter and the receiver. Almost all power goes in this carrier wave. The information-bearing signal is spread over maximum 100 MHz sideband, giving it the appearance of a UWB system.
Because xMax sideband emissions fall far below the noise floor, legacy users can continue normal operation while xMax simultaneously delivers a second information bearing signal, thereby allowing for spectrum reuse.
By using lower frequency spectrum, greater signal distance and penetration can be achieved. Four base stations would cover the entire Washington D.C. metropolitan area including Maryland and Northern Virginia. A FAQ on the company's website (www.xgtechnology.com) provides more details.
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August 19, 2005 14:00 - Blind people need GPS, but...
"The biggest fear of a blind person is the fear of being lost." There is no better means than a GPS receiver to prevent you from getting lost. But all information on all GPS receivers has to be read on a small screen. As even people with a rather good sight already have trouble to read these screens, visual-impaired persons can not expect much help from a GPS receiver.
Canadian HumanWare (formerly Visuaide) has built Trekker, a pocketPC-like device that communicates verbally with the user. This is not a new, but a mature product. Visuaide already worked several years on it and the latest version is 2.6.
Trekker comes with an external GPS receiver (incorporated in the battery pack) plus GPS antenna and a separate speaker. The whole can be comfortably worn on a neck or shoulder strap. The extra speaker can be fixed on the clothes, in order to have it near the ear.
One could write a lot more about this wonderful product, but why not visit HumanWare's website at www. visuaide.com and view a video demonstration (for the not-impaired) or hear an audio file that are rather self-explanatory.
We do not have any affiliation with HumanWare, but we admire their wonderful work.
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August 23, 2005 16:52 - Prepare to change your cell phone
With an increasing number of stories in the local US press about people who have been saved thanks to a GPS receiver in their phone and the FCC December 31, 2005 deadline to the wireless telephone companies to provide the technology to automatically locate callers to the Enhanced 911 system, you maybe should check now if your phone is ready to give out your location in case of an emergency.
The Dec. 31 deadline will probably not be met by all parties involved, but be sure that your phone is not the weak part in the whole. When you bought your cell phone more than a year ago, it could very well be that it is not ready for E911. You better check with your cell phone provider.
After all, in case something serious happened to you on a remote location, the difference could be being found in time or not.
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August 24, 2005 18:30 - Will those Wireless Technologies ultimately fry our brains?
In a couple of years from now we will have replaced all those hated data cables between all our devices by wireless connections. Every device from the biggest to the smallest will have its own transmitter. At least one, but preferably two or three, using different technologies in different frequency bands.
All computers and all present and future peripherals will use wireless connections. In the office, at home and on the road.
Houses will be equipped with ZigBee systems to manage everything automatically and remotely. TV, Internet and other services will not come into the house by means of cables, but "through the air".
Our cars will constantly transmit information on the engine's condition, the driver's condition, your speed and which road you are on, in order to establish the correct road bill at the end of the day.
Today's cell phones will be humoristic memories of the past. Future phones will contain 3G, 4G or even xG technologies, capable of doing almost everything, you can not imagine yet. They will also have incorporated NFC transmitters, in order to comfortably arrange payments everywhere. RFID transmitters in those phones will also create a lot of new opportunities.
Video conferences by cell phone will invite us to hold these devices even many more hours per day against our head and constantly transmit an awful lot of data through the air via cell towers, WiFi hotspots, WiMAX networks and others.
There will be towers and posts with powerful radio transmitters everywhere. Many more people will sleep under them and absorb all these high energy radio signals in their brains and bodies.
Already today there are serious concerns of what the long-term use of cell phones will show to have done with people's health. It is not uncommon for cancers and brain damages to develop during 30 years or more, before manifesting themselves.
In this context and seen the much higher levels of radio transmissions to which we all will be exposed, it is at least unbelievable that today several cell phones for children of 6-12 years are marketed by several brands. Young people are much more vulnerable to all kinds of hazardous influences.
If in the future it would become clear that the sum of all these radio frequency energies was not as harmless as some try to do us believe now, we could witness a society where a large percentage of the 40-plussers suffer from dementia.
There will be no huge processes like those against the tobacco industry, as the victims, the witnesses, the lawyers and the judges will not remember the facts.
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August 28, 2005 14:20 - e-Plates?
Hills Numberplates Ltd of Birmingham, UK developed and patented license plates with an active RFID chip incorporated. The chips are self-powered with a battery life of up to 10 years. After activation, the tagged plate continually broadcasts its encrypted identification.
A small e-Plate reader can read up to 200 moving vehicles per second at a distance of up to 100 meters. The reader with its antenna can be permanently mounted by the roadside or take the form of a PCMCIA card in a PC or handheld device.
The e-plate is tamperproof. Try to remove it from a vehicle and it will destruct itself. It is fitted to the vehicle utilizing the vehicle's existing number plate mounting holes.
By using a modular approach, the reader station at the road side can utilize all existing network infrastructures, such as Copper, Fibre, GSM and GPRS in order to send its readings to a central server.
The benefits to government and commercial operators are evident:
o Access control
o Automated tolling
o Asset tracking
o Traffic flow monitoring
o Vehicle crime and non-compliance
Some visitors of red light districts already fear that they will have to take the bus, once these plates would become mandatory.
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August 31, 2005 17:22 - ike has it all: GPS, Compass, Laser, Inclinometer, Camera and pocketPC
A GPS receiver, a digital camera, a laser distance meter, a digital compass, an inclinometer and a pockePC all in one device; the ike 300 from the New Zealand firm Surveylab.
The handheld device with a weight of 1050 grams allows you to record GPS co-ordinates of objects from a distance of up to 50 meters. The center of the simultaneously taken picture will show exactly which target you aimed at.
The position, photo and all information of the other instruments are tied together and saved to a memory card. How could you better explain to someone which target you are talking about?
With all instruments switched on the battery will last for 8 hours. For a greater accuracy the ike has multiple options for using differential GPS. It supports SBAS, Real-time RTCM and DGPS Post Processing.
The ike allows you to capture the position of objects where there is no GPS reception, as under trees or in an urban skyscraper environment. And in many situations it will be much safer to capture from a distance. What about capturing manhole covers in the middle of a busy street? And what about the position of a mine? Would you like to hold a normal GPS receiver just above it?
Many organizations could use this device to their advantage and no wonder that also soldiers are very interested.
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