Ubisense makes a real time locating system (RTLS) that can locate objects with 15cm accuracy in 3 dimensions. To do this, they attach a tag to each object that has a built-in radio, and a series of radio receivers around the space that they’re tracking in. The receivers receive signals from the tags, and triangulate their location based on radio signal strength.
It’s not the kind of system an individual could afford to buy or setup, and it has its limits. For example, the tags are fairly large. And it’s expensive ($10K last time I checked). But it could be useful for certain research situations, or inventory control of large items.
Thanks to Allison Woodruff for the link.
Technorati Tags: location systems, networks, RTLS
I’ve been thinking about doing a very lo-fi version of something like this by putting an Arduino and an RFID reader at a few important portals: i.e. at my front door, at my room’s door, in my car. The idea being that if I tagged a few important objects, I could get a low resolution version of the ‘Search Engine of Things’ for them (i.e. I could figure out where I’d left my keys). And, as more objects come off the line with their own RFID tags, they’d get swept up in the system too.