Real-time asset location intelligence is an area of increasing interest to business executives. Thanks to the proliferation of the IoT, asset tracking is within reach of just about any company—and has so far proven to be one of the areas where the IoT is having the most impact. Gone are the days when only high-value assets could be tracked; today, even tracking lower-value assets is practical, producing plenty of business intelligence data for the organizations that take advantage of this technology.
What’s everyone doing with all that data? Organizations across all industries are using it to monitor their assets both on site and on the move, giving them better control of their resources. They’re also analyzing it, identifying trends and patterns related to asset use that can be used to optimize processes. But even though implementing an asset tracking solution is identified as a top priority for many companies, there’s likely to be one thing that holds many of them back: finding the right asset tracking solution for their needs.
Asset Location Technologies & The Selection Process
We wrote our latest white paper offering, Asset Location Technologies & The Selection Process, to help you make sense of the range of solutions offered, so your efforts will be successful. It answer the questions:
- What types of asset tracking technologies are available?
- What technology makes the most sense for your company, use case, budget, and resources?
- Is AirFinder’s enterprise-grade RTLS solution appropriate for your needs?
To start reading about one of the technologies we discuss in the white paper—precision-based real-time location systems (RTLS)—keep reading. (Or, if you want to read about all three now, skip to the bottom of this article and download the white paper now.)
Precision-Based Real-Time Location Systems
Precision-based RTLS allows tracking of assets to an exact, precise location—a “dot on the map.” The tags used to determine location work by trilateration, or measuring the distance of a tag from at least three fixed reference points, called readers or beacons. Distance is measured by the time it takes radio waves (or sound) to travel from the readers to the tags. Precision-based RTLS is usually implemented through either ultra-wide band (UWB) RF, WiFi-based technologies, or using ultrasound.
These types of RTLS systems use a relatively wide bandwidth. Accuracy indoors is related to signal bandwidth, so you can often get accurate positioning within a few meters. That makes it useful for applications like inventory management.
But does your company need pinpoint-level accuracy? Most people just starting out with asset tracking think they do, but that isn’t always the case.
Read more about how to know if your use case actually requires (or doesn’t require) precision-based RTLS—and about the other asset tracking technologies and solutions available—by downloading our whitepaper, Asset Location Technologies & The Selection Process.
I guarantee you’ll come away with some valuable information about asset location technologies and solutions that will be useful for your research going forward.
