Asset Tracking & Locationing At Scale (ATLAS)

There are a number of mechanisms that can be employed in estimating the location of or tracking an asset. One such mechanism utilizes measuring the angle of arriving signals at a receiver (typically utilizing multiple antennae and placed in a known location) emitted from a transmitter whose location you are attempting to estimate. This technique being commonly referred to as ‘Angle of Arrival’ (or AoA), and in the case where the transmitter’s signal is received by more than one receiver, then the transmitter’s (relative) position can be estimated using the process of ‘triangulation’. This mechanism has been adopted in Bluetooth^®, along with a closely related mechanism referred to as Angle of Departure (or AoD). The same applies to AoD but the angle in this case is used to estimate the relative position of the receiver. Placing a receiver(s) (referred to as a locator) in a room and using AoA you can track the position of (multiple) assets in that proximity. Placing a transmitter(s) in a building can assist assets (people or vehicles) in determining their position in the building.

To overcome limitations in the number of transmitters (referred to as tags) = assets that can be tracked per receiver (referred to as locator) using Bluetooth SIG AoA, Renesas has developed, field-deployed and field-proven an angle-based scheme referred to as ‘ATLAS’ (asset tracking and Locationing at scale). ATLAS is able to track 1000+ tags per locator in typical deployments based on its proprietary collision avoidance schema.

Renesas’ DA14594 (the ‘Locationing 2.0 BLE SoC) offers a cost-competitive, highest performance, lowest power consumption SoC that supports: AoA, AoD, ATLAS, and Eddystone and iBeacon (for use with legacy Locators). The DA14594 also supports Renesas’ third generation of WiRa™ (Wireless Ranging) for proximity-based (using tri-lateration) Locationing using phase-based ranging, employing Renesas’ advanced multipath cancellation.