Relative Positioning

The devices in an Omnisense S500 Cluster Geolocation system  form a wireless mesh network. Each device broadcasts a radio message periodically. Neighbours within range measure the precise time of arrival of the messages broadcast by neighbours. The sophisticated Joint Timing and Location Engine (JTLE) uses these measurements and the data contained in the messages to compute the positions of the Nodes relative to one another.

By using one-to-many broadcasts and measurements of precise time-to-arrival (TOA) the system is able to achieve high accuracy and it works both indoors and outdoors.

Real environments

Being a relative positioning system means that there is no need for special access points or anchor nodes to be installed. The S500 deals with the requirement to generate absolute positions in an extremely elegant and simple way: A number of the sensor nodes are associated with features of the environment. This is achieved entirely through the way the system is configured and managed.

The system is managed through a straight web interface or the omniWhere application software running on the whereBox.

At the heart of the system is the whereBox which uses are wide range of measurements from devices to compute the best possible positions and locations and presents them in high level user application context. Outputs are delivered using standard protocols (HTTP, REST, JSON, GeoJson, MQQT etc.) using the Omnisense API.

More than X and Y

Whilst the position (X and Y or latitude and longitude) are core parameters, location is also about height (Z), velocity, direction, orientation, time and in many cases behaviour too. The S500 system is a full 3D system and the Nodes include motion sensors that allow it to deliver information about the attitude (heading, pitch and roll) of the sensor. It also includes smart algorithms to interpret the position and behaviour in a contextual way: for example zone occupancy, neighbour associations or fall alert.

For more details see our White Papers.