Locata announced that it will unveil the TimeTenna, a
positioning antenna technology that for the first time allows centimeter-accurate,
GPS-style positioning indoors.
Building on the company’s ground-breaking new terrestrial
positioning system, the Locata technology will enable new high-accuracy
positioning, machine automation and robotics applications indoors and is
initially aimed at warehousing and industrial applications.
Locata’s unique high-accuracy terrestrial positioning
technology LocataNet is already deployed outdoors by partners such as Leica
Geosystems and organizations including the U.S. Air Force.
Locata’s new indoor solution will enable businesses to
automate, locate and direct equipment such as forklifts and other machinery in
radio navigation settings where it has previously been impossible.
Locata has already taken steps to begin
miniaturizing the core antenna technology to ultimately allow high-accuracy
positioning indoors for personal devices like mobile phones.
“Today, Locata is instrumental in delivering the
future of positioning technology, creating ‘indoor GPS’ that is just as
complete and accurate as traditional outdoor GPS,” said Nunzio Gambale,
chairman and CEO of Locata.
“After years of development and testing, we have
architected the only system in the world capable of providing precision
positioning across large indoor areas where GPS signals can’t reach,”
Gambale added.
To accomplish this technical breakthrough, David Small,
Locata’s co-founder, has had to overcome the problem of multipath the fact that
radio signals bounce chaotically indoors and therefore become impossible to
track correctly.
Satellite-based GPS signals were not designed to reach
indoors and are therefore unable to pass through even minor obstructions. When
this is added to multipath conditions with signals bouncing repeatedly off
walls and/or other objects, accurate and reliable positioning becomes
impossible.
Locata’s patented Correlator Beam Forming technology, The
Small TimeTenna, named after its creator David Small, is the first system to
overcome this multipath interference to enable accurate positioning indoors.
The TimeTenna versions Locata is showing at ION are about
the size of a soccer ball and designed for machine automation use. The Locata
team is now focused on taking this technology all the way to an iPhone.
The TimeTenna technology will be unveiled, demonstrated
and explained in detail at the GNSS 2011 Conference.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
