A harmonising decision of the European Commission has been adopted
today outlining the mandatory conditions for the use of ultra-wideband
(UWB) technology across the 27 member states of the European Union.
UWB is a radio technology which sends low energy pulses across a wide
spread of frequencies enabling high data rate communications, imaging
of objects through walls and high precision location tracking.
Ubisense, headquartered in Cambridge, England has developed an
advanced real-time location system based on UWB technology. The system
received FCC certification in U.S.A. in 2004 but up to now was only
available to European companies and organisations for research and
evaluation purposes. "Finally it will be possible for our European
customers and partners to roll out solutions based on our technology
for production usage" commented Richard Green, CEO of Ubisense. "In
conjunction with the recently released ETSI standard for Location
Tracking EN 302 500, we can now obtain the appropriate CE
certification for our products".
The Ubisense system enables logistics and manufacturing companies
to locate and track important assets and vehicles, improve operational
processes and ensure that workers can operate more safely in hazardous
environments, particularly inside buildings. Ubisense active UWB tags
provide an important extension to the range of active RFID
transponders available in the market place in that they may be located
and tracked in real-time to an accuracy of 15cm at ranges exceeding
100m. The attached table illustrates where the new UWB frequencies are
positioned with respect to traditional technologies. UWB is
particularly important when locating objects inside buildings because
the sensors can differentiate between directly received signals and
those resulting from reflections off walls or metal objects. The low
signal power used by the Ubisense system ensures that there is no
interference with other wireless systems in operation. Ubisense has
more than 150 customers in many different markets including logistics,
automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, process plants, sports,
exhibitions, gaming, military training, workplace and healthcare.
About Ubisense
Ubisense is the market leading RTLS (Real-time Location System)
vendor based on UWB (Ultra-wideband) technology delivering a highly
scalable and reliable precise real-time location platform that is
being deployed in mission critical applications around the world.
www.ubisense.net
