Here’s the second part of the RTLS Requirements post. Last week we covered use cases, accuracy, and performance requirements. This time we’ll cover tags, integration, deployment tools, and couple of other points. Lot’s of things to discuss, so let’s get started!
4. Tag Battery Life and Form Factor
The battery life is a key consideration. The more often the tags need to report their location, the shorter the battery life. For tracking assets, Wi-Fi tags waking up once every 10 minutes may be fine, and you’ll get years of battery life. For tracking people in real-time, you may want to update the locations every 5 seconds, but then those tags can be reharged daily or weekly on a tag charger.
The RTLS vendor sales rep can provide you with the exact numbers the system can do. It’s up to you to determine a) what is the minimum battery life I can live with (how often the batteries can be recharged / changed) and b) what is the slowest location update frequency I can live with? This needs to be considered for each tag type and use case. There’s differences in battery life and rechargeable / not with each RTLS provider, and with each tag model.
There’s tricks that can be used here to improve battery life and system performance: Using a motion sensor to wake up the tag is the most common one. Think of an asset tracking scenario: You can wake up the tag only when it moves, for example, or only when it stops moving. This way, you’ll always know the last location of the asset, and will maximize battery life. Or you can make a combination: “wake up the tag every hour and also whenever it moves”.
To ensure the correct form factor, simply ask for samples of all the tags you’ll use and see if they’re small enough or not.
5. Impact to Facility Daily Operations
When the system is deployed, you want to disturb the operations as little as possible. Cabling is probably the worst: You don’t want to pull more cabling runs unless absoltely necessary. Battery powered readers would be the ones to go with, if possible.
I would highly suggest using software-only solutions and those that utilize your existing Wi-Fi network if possible. But again, no freebies here: if you want true room accuracy (think process optimization), you will very likely need to put some readers in. Some Wi-Fi only solutions, however, are good enough for finding assets and providing staff safety without any additions.
6. Integration with Existing IT Systems
First thing is to ensure that, if you go with a Wi-Fi based solution, that your Wi-Fi vendor is supported. Typically all the major Wi-Fi RTLS vendors are supported by major Wi-Fi RTLS players. If you go with a vendor-specific RTLS solution, bear in mind that you may run into problems if you choose to expand the network with gear from a different Wi-Fi vendor.
The better the system integrates with your existing IT systems and policies, the better of course:
- If the tags need a network connection, ask for at least WPA2 security and DHCP support. If you have an asset management application, perhaps the vendor integrates with that?
- If you want to locate VoIP phones, perhaps the VoIP phone provider has RTLS optimized features (of one or more vendors) built-in to the phone?
- If you have a custom made application you’d like to add location capabilities to, have someone at your IT department (or your application provider or a consultant) look at the APIs from different vendors: How easy are they to integrate with?
- Do you have other Wi-Fi powered devices, like iPhones or laptops that you want to locate? If so, ask for the vendor how that is done, and test that also.
Even though a lot is possible by interfacing with the RTLS APIs, bear in mind: Don’t try to cover all the thinkable use cases in the first phase of the deployment: Keep things simple! Prioritize! Ask yourself, what are the key problems you want to solve today? What will you need in the short-term future? What are nice-to-haves or things that can be left out? Avoid scope creep at all costs!
7. Deployment Methods and Deployment Tool Features
How complicated and pricey is the system deployment? This varies a lot depending on the system: There’s various methods for system calibration, fine-tuning, tag management, the list is long. Ask the vendors for user guides and deployment guidelines – the more cryptic it looks like, the more problems you’ll have and the more time it takes. If you don’t completely understand all the deployment variables, ask. And if the vendor rep doesn’t know them either, get suspicious.
Ask from the reference customers (you got those from your vendors, right) on how long and complicated the deployment process truly was. A good sign is if the system does not absolutely require vendor presence during deployment (although I would recommend to have them on-site at least for the first days of deployment).
Visual tools with easy-to-understand GUIs are preferred here. Some vendors can provide you with web-based deployment training presentations and even live webinars to go through the tools.
After the deployment, the vendor should be able to provide you with detailed reports about the infrastructure and location accuracy. If it’s a Wi-Fi based system, the vendor should also understand the Wi-Fi network in detail, and thus may be able to provide you with a detailed Wi-Fi site survey report also.
9. Reliability and performance
Of course, every RTLS vendor claims their system is “the most robust and the most scalable and the most whatnot”. Find out about the reliability by asking a few customers who have run the systems for years.
For performance, ask for the biggest deployments the vendors have and call them. An RTLS server should be able to handle at least 10,000-20,000 devices and be able to produce 500-1000 location updates in a second. Your facility size may also affect perfomance: If you have a massive campus, the RTLS server may require more memory. With some RTLS solutions, the accuracy degrades the larger the site is!
10. Requirements for Procedural Changes
When the system is taken into production, people using it and maintaining it will need to change how they work. Examples are employees having to carry tags and leave them into a charger when leaving work and grabbing them again in the morning, or learning to use a new asset management system. This is typically nothing major, but asking the employees about their opinions before the purchase gives you less resistance in the long run – and it’s the nice thing to do.
I hope this helps! Good luck with your RTLS project – may it be a successful one!
Cheers
Jussi Kiviniemi
Sr. Product Manager
Ekahau
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