RFID News: The Southeast Alabama Medical Center (SAMC) in Dothan, Ala. has chosen to expand its Ekahau Real Time Location System (RTLS) to include campus-wide monitoring of its refrigerators and freezers.

SAMC deployed Ekahau’s RTLS campuswide earlier this year to track critical clinical assets, such as infusion pumps and patient monitors over its Wi-Fi network.

SAMC expanded the system to monitor the temperature of perishable items contained within its freezers and refrigerators, including food, medicine, organs, and blood and tissue samples. Any significant changes in the temperature could mean drastic losses of these items, and so SAMC looked to implement a monitoring system with alarm capabilities.

The system consists of Wi-Fi based T301t temperature monitoring tags, the Ekahau Positioning Engine and Tag Management platform, as well as Ekahau’s Vision solution that manages all the system’s alarms and escalation paths. The T301t tags are able to measure temperatures from -200C to + 200 C and feature on-board alarming via a flashing indicator and buzzer.

In the future SAMC expects to grow the RTLS system, which works on its existing Wi-Fi network, to track several thousand more assets.

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Steel Guru (via RFIDJournal.com): Through the introduction of a real time location system, South Korean steel manufacturer POSCO is reducing accidents, improving employee and visitor safety and lowering energy consumption.

To ensure the safety of employees and visitors at the plant, POSCO has introduced its u safety management system, which utilizes ultra wideband radio frequency identification tags and interrogators to monitor all areas of the facility. Each person working in or visiting the plant is provided with a helmet fitted with a battery powered RFID tag, allowing managers to quickly locate that individual in the event of a serious accident, such as a fire or gas leak.

Mr Hanku Park, a senior master POSCO certified professional, said that his company previously had no means of tracking employees' locations throughout the factory. He added that "Ensuring worker safety at the plant is vital and we wanted a system that could track workers, visitors and even vehicles to monitor or limit their access to hazardous areas of the plant. We consulted with IBM Korea to find a solution that would best meet our needs. We conducted technical tests on the RTLS system and software that allowed us to determine the distance required between the tag and reader, given the iron and steel present as part of the production process, as well as determines tag and reader accuracy."

POSCO uses Ubisense's RTLS solution, with Series 7000 RFID tags affixed to personnel and equipment. The tags operate on a frequency of 6 to 8 GHz, beaconing once per second. The Series 7000 readers receive the beacons from the tags to determine position, and that information is then transmitted to the LAS middleware over a local area network.

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Network Computing: Asahi India Glass, one of the largest manufacturers of glass for automotives, uses specially designed metallic pallets to store and move the automotive glass across the supply chain, right from the production floor till the car manufacturer's assembly line. Thus, visibility of these pallets is imperative at all times, not only at the firm’s own facilities, but also at the customer's end.

Asahi faced a huge challenge with respect to monitoring and accounting for these pallets, since they are critical to production, are moveable, large in number and circulated in an open loop supply chain.

To improve pallet visibility, the firm partnered with Barcode India, which developed a turnkey solution for returnable asset tracking using Motorola passive UHF Gen2 RFID technology. Today, each pallet is mounted with RFID tags which carry a unique pallet ID number.

The gate portals are erected at strategic locations to capture the movement of the pallets. As a forklift carrying an RFID-enabled pallet passes through these portals for inward, outward or within facility movement, the tags are read by gate readers and processed by the application software. The pallet transactions are also captured at the customer's end at the time of delivery using hand held RFID readers.

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TMC Net: By Marisa Torrieri, TMCnet Editor

Since Arnold Clark Automobiles upgraded to a WiFi (News - Alert)-and-RFID-based system via the Cisco Unified Wireless Network this summer, cars have become so much easier to track that the European independent auto dealer has already saved 125 hours a month, which means two service workers can focus on other areas.


Before implementing the Cisco (News - Alert) Unified Wireless Network, “the dealership -- which has 145 locations and 8,000 employees across the United Kingdom – would sometimes find it challenging to track down the right car for the right customer quickly,” saidChris Kozup ( News - Alert), senior manager of mobility solutions for networking giant Cisco. The flagship dealership, located in Stafford, maintains an inventory of 1,000 cars for sale at any given time on a 12-acre lot and 74,000 square-foot showroom.

But when a customer arrives to the sales lot, associates typically have less than 10 minutes to engage the customer and find the right car or they could lose the sales opportunity. With the new Cisco-based system in place, a sales associate can pinpoint the exact location of a desired car within minutes. First, the sales person goes to a terminal with Arnold Clark’s inventory management software that is connected to the AeroScout Vehicle Tracking Solution application. They select the parameters – for example, “customer wants a 2007 blue four-door” -- and plug in that information. The tracking system scans the inventory to see the cars that match the criteria, and then, “pings into” the Cisco “Mobility Services Engine” to determine where the car is located. Because cars wear active Radio Frequency Identification (or RFID) tags that send out signals to the tracking system, their location on a floor plan or lot is exact, Kozup said.

“What the Cisco Mobility Services Engine does is allows us to take that location information and put it into the AeroScout Vehicle tracking solution,” Kozup said. “And the combination of that information with the tracking solution helps the car sales associate know where a car is located on a floor or lot plan.”

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We enable fast location-based services. Anytime. Anywhere. Even Indoors!

Our GPStream™ framework of GPS acceleration solutions uniquely reduce GPS wake-up times to mere seconds while improving GPS signal lock in challenging indoor and urban environments. Our new XYBRID™ multi-mode positioning engine uniquely combines Cell-ID, WiFi signals with GPS ephemeris and coarse position aiding to yield fast and ubiquitous positioning for virtually any device.
We license our GPStream and XYBRID solutions to location service providers, semiconductor vendors and mobile device manufacturers to help them deliver a Click’n Go!™ mobile location user experience on any mobile device.

PervCom Consulting Private Limited is focused on developing devices and system solutions for remote tracking, monitoring and management of objects, human beings and environment using Active RFID tags / sensors and actuators with wireless mesh networking technologies. These industry standard products are backed by PervCom’s pioneering research in the area of pervasive computing and communication systems involving wireless and mobile technologies to overcome the short comings of Passive RFID and WiFi based tracking and sensing solutions.

PervTrack – Real Time Locating System (RTLS) & PervTrack – Real Time Sensing System (RTSS) comprise of a unique set of tracking and sensing devices integrated with a core software engine for tracking, monitoring and management application suites. These solutions offer “Anytime Anywhere” visibility and control over enterprise objects and environment on a unified platform – using Active RFID devices, sensors and actuators integrated with IEEE 802.15.4 based Wireless Mesh Networks.

PervTrack – Real Time Locating System (RTLS) and PervTrack – Real Time Sensing System (RTSS) solutions are rapidly-deployable, accurate, reliable, easy-to-use and zero-configurable. These solutions offer measurable ROI in terms of enhanced productivity, better customer care and increased workforce safety.

PR Inside: Calcutta, India, September 21, 2009 - PervCom, an industry leader in providing active RFID based real time locating system (RTLS) solutions in India, has announced the launch of its new comprehensive wireless solution package for the mining industry for improving asset visibility, optimizing production, and safety.

PervCom’s WirelessMine solution package covers the open pit and underground mining operations with different modules; namely- DumperTrace, DumperShield, DumperHealth, TruckTrack and WirelessUnderground.

The DumperTrace is a Dumper Utilization Management and Trip-Counting System for opencast mining industries. Dumper Trace combines the benefit of IEEE 802.15.4 wireless mesh networking system with GPS based navigation system in order to overcome the limitations of GPS-Only systems. The measurement of cumulative utilization pattern of Shovel-Drill Machines-Dumper and other mining equipments is also possible in this system. The online monitoring facility inherent in the system enables proper, error-free monitoring of production from the remote corporate office to the higher management.

DumperShield is a dual-alert automatic collision avoidance system that protects dumper-to-dumper collision, dumper-to-worker collision and the collision of dumper with fixed hazards in opencast mines. Dumper Shield offers early warning and proximity warning using GPS and RF proximity sensors ensuring no blind spot and minimum false alarm. The driving characteristics of the Dumper driver can also be logged inside the system and used in the future for analysis.

DumperHealth system automatically detects and monitors the operational parameters of the essential components of Dumper & generates alerts for maintenance related issues.

TruckTrack is an automated real time tracking system of locations and weights of loaded trucks at entry-exit gates, parking lot, weighbridges within a plant premise from the remote corporate office.

WirelessUnderground system is meant for improving underground mining safety and production improvement through constant monitoring of asset utilization. The utilization pattern of various underground mining equipments such as Side Discharge Loaders, various Drill machines, Load Haul Dump machines etc. can be monitored online and without any human intervention. Moreover, underground miners can be located in various tunnels from the central control station on the surface, which has a great impact on the safety in case of a disaster. The WirelessUnderground system also incorporates strategic placement of the wireless toxic gas sensors, humidity and air flow monitoring sensors to monitor the underground environment in real time, and also provide alerts to take appropriate actions in case of undesired situation.

The benefit of this integrated WirelessMine system is multi-dimensional. By studying the current utilization pattern of the mobile vehicle units the management can improve the production of the operating vehicles. This will in turn improve the individual mobile asset utilization to a great extent. Furthermore, the closed loop control over the mobile asset will also improve the operational efficiency by allocating ‘idle’ vehicles to the more work heavy zones.

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PRWEB: Vancouver, B.C. (PRWEB) September 21, 2009 -- Rx Networks, Inc., a leading mobile location technology company, today announced its new XYBRID™ multi-mode positioning engine. XYBRID™ uniquely combines Cell-ID, WiFi signals with Assisted GPS ephemeris and coarse position aiding to yield fast and ubiquitous positioning for virtually any device.

"As a low-overhead, operator independent Assisted-GPS solution, XYBRID RT™, the first and real-time version of the solution, is optimized for service providers and device manufacturers - such as asset tracking companies - in need of fast global positioning, and for whom the lack of Assisted-GPS roaming or cost variances make it impractical to consider implementations across multiple operators", said Guylain Roy-MacHabee CEO of Rx Networks. "Also, in contrast with other GPS aiding solutions that can potentially expose user identity XYBRID RT™ contains no user identification mechanism and ensures security and privacy for applications that need it, such as tracking high value cargo."

"XYBRID RT™ is a perfect fit for Fastrax offerings and more importantly, for our customers. There is a continuous need to improve fix availability and TTFF in "impossible" environments in almost every asset tracking application. With our XYBRID RT™ based offering we serve our tracking customers as well as our GPS module customers even better than before and we expect this extended service to be greatly appreciated", said Fredrik Borgstrom, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Fastrax.

Rx Networks supports flexible business models and XYBRID RT™ can be licensed on a usage or a lifetime subscription basis. Rx Networks provides a XYBRID RT™ mobile client compatible with most mobile operating systems and most GPS chipsets. XYBRID RT™ will be available for commercial use in December 2009.

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Westico Technologies focuses on development of solutions providing total visibility of assets, people, sensors and other devices within one system. We specialize in systems RTLS (Real-Time Locating System) for asset and people tracking, systems for efficient Wi-Fi sensor based data collection and tracking of assets using RFID tags. The company was founded in 2007.

Reuters: HUNTSVILLE, Ala.--(Business Wire)-- Time Domain Corporation, the leader in ultra wideband (UWB) real-time location systems (RTLS), and Klever Marketing, Inc. (KLMK.OB), today announced the introduction and first installation of Klever`s Giving Cart System with Time Domain`s Precision Location Ultra Wideband System (PLUS). This enables retailers to dynamically communicate promotions and advertisements to customers as they shop, optimizing the shopping experience and driving sales.

Time Domain and Klever Marketing launched The Giving CartSystem in The Market, a privately owned Park City, Utah, supermarket this month. The system, which includes interactive, wireless display units that attach to shopping cart handles, enables The Market to target promotions to shoppers at the point-of-selection and build consumer loyalty. The units are tracked in real-time and automatically alert customers to promotions as they travel throughout the store. The Market will also use the technology to analyze consumer purchasing preferences to offer better targeted promotions and inform more strategic location of merchandise. "There has been a significant reduction in the installation cost of our updated Giving Cart," said Paul G. Begum, CEO, Klever Marketing. "The solution benefits consumers, retailers and package good manufacturers."

The Giving CartSystem is powered by Time Domain`s Precision Location Ultra Wideband System (PLUS) as each display unit contains a PLUS OEM tag. PLUS has the capability to provide 24 x 7 real-time (every second), highly precise (down to 12 inches) data on every asset in a retail store, including inventory, display units, fixtures, people and more. Attempts to field interactive shopping systems in the past have failed due to poor location accuracy, expense and lack of long lasting battery powered systems. Grocery stores have been particularly difficult retail settings to locate accurately. PLUS reaches beyond the limits of other systems, such as GPS, Zigbee and Wi-Fi, with accuracy and long battery life that is unmatched in the industry.

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