Integration Technology Track Location determining technologies: RFID, WiFi, GPS

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Integration Technology TrackLocation determining
technologiesRFID, Wi-Fi, GPS LBSLocation
Based Systems that Help You Capitalize On Your
Existing Wireless InfrastructureRichard
BarnwellCTO PanGo Networks Incrichard.barnwell
_at_pangonetworks.com
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Agenda

• Is there a business case for local area Location
  Based Services (LBS)?
• Case study ROI for Hospital Asset Tracking
• How do you add location awareness to a local area
  in a cost effective way?
• Wi-Fi based LBS

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Local Area LBS Case Study The ROI of Asset
Tracking in a Health Care System
Where is the equipment?
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The ROI benefit numbers for Asset Tracking in a
hospital

• Reduced equipment purchase 10 150,000
• Reduced equipment rental 15 60,000
• Reduced maintenance/support labor 10
  40,000
• Reduced clinical labor 2 150,000
• Improved hospital workflow 1-2 200,000
• Improved employee satisfaction soft
• Improved patient satisfaction soft
• Improved quality of care (could develop hard
  est.) soft
• Improved regulatory compliance (could develop
  hard est.) soft
• ------------
• Annual benefit 600,000

Payback period typically less than 1 year
Numbers are conservative values drawn from US
hospital systems with 250-500 beds
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Options for local area LBS

• Use the same technologies used in the wide area
  e.g. GPS, Cellular network based
• Not really suitable due to poor availability and
  accuracy
• Use a specialized radio network designed solely
  for Location determination
• Portal/Choke-Point based, and/or
• Full area continuousReal Time Location System
  (RTLS)
• Tend to be costly and single purpose
• Add location awareness to a radio network
  youalready have deployed e.g. Wi-Fi

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Wi-Fi networks can now support data, voice
location
e.g., Physician Order Entry
e.g., VOIP Badges
e.g., Asset Tracking
Data Apps
Location Apps
Voice Apps
DATA
VOICE
LOCATION
802.11 WLAN Infrastructure
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Why use Wi-Fi for local area LBS?

• Because you get to leverage the single
  infrastructure cost for multiple servicesdata,
  voice location.
• So, the marginal cost of adding Location is very
  low
• Because location will become an equity of the
  network in 2005 and beyond as the WLAN
  infrastructure providers make location available
  as a feature of their offerings
• Because Wi-Fi is getting better all the
  timea/b/gi/e/rk/vnthe alphabet goes on!

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The underlying techniques for adding location
awareness to Wi-Fi
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Use RF Power to determine location based on
empirical survey or theoretical model
-48
-60
-35
Location 1
Location 2
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The components of a Wi-Fi LBS solutionjust add
software!
ApplicationsAsset Tracking, People Tracking,
Yard Management
Middleware Determines location or receives feed
from networkSupports complementary location
providers e.g. Passive RFID
ReadersNO additional readersjust use the Wi-Fi
APs
Track-able devicesWi-Fi devices e.g. PDAs,
Laptops, Active Tags
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Summary

• There is a significant business case for
  deploying LBS in the local area
• Intra-Enterprise Asset Tracking is one example of
  a key category of local area LBS Apps
• Standard Wi-Fi infrastructure can be enhanced to
  provide location through the simple addition of
  software
• Wi-Fi Active Tags can be affixed to items that
  are not 802.11 enabled so almost anything is
  locatable