Real-Time Locating Systems—Now a Very Hot Topic

The tags may be the size of your hand or the size of a wristwatch. Accuracy of location varies from a few centimeters to merely many meters. Basically, you get what you pay for. However, RTLS is one of those technologies that is workable and affordable at just the right time to meet a variety of urgent needs. These vary from preventing hospitals losing typically 15 percent of their assets every year and their staff not being located rapidly enough when they are being assaulted or come to an emergency situation that requires assistance. Then there is the need for better traceability of personnel, whether up a stack or down a tunnel, in oil and gas facilities, finding critical assets in those and other industries, and even tracking children on the way home from school or when a building is evacuated. There is much more, and that is why no one technology will satisfy all the needs, and many more technologies are coming along. For example, BP finds Ultra Wide Band RTLS best for 3D tracking of personnel in potentially dangerous facilities. Hospitals often prefer RTLS working off WiFi, because it can be a little lower in cost-of-ownership and best accuracy is not paramount.