Australian-based company, Locata, has announced the industry's first GPS-style indoor positioning solution. The company's TimeTenna will enable new high-accuracy positioning, automation and robotics applications indoors where GPS signals don't reach.
The company also announced that they have released the interface specifications (ICD) partners need to begin building receivers for Locata's ground-based positioning technology, and that Hexagon, provider of design, measurement and visualisation technologies, will include Locata’s terrestrial positioning technology in future GPS-GLONASS-Galileo-Compass receivers.
Locata’s TimeTenna antenna technology allows centimeter-accurate, GPS-style positioning indoors. Building on the company’s 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 organisations 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 miniaturising the core antenna technology to ultimately allow high-accuracy positioning indoors for personal devices like mobile phones.
Locata has also announced the public availability of an Interface Control Document (ICD) that defines the requirements related to the interface for its ground-based positioning technology. The ICD lays out the technical information Locata Technology Integrators (LTIs) and other interested parties need to design standalone Locata positioning receivers, or to allow tight integration of core Locata receiver technology alongside GPS at the chip level. Locata’s receiver technology works with Locata’s transceivers, called LocataLites, to deliver centimetre-accurate positioning where GPS signals are erratic, jammed or unavailable.
Further to this, Locata also announced that Hexagon, a global provider of design, measurement and visualisation technologies, will integrate Locata positioning technology with its positioning receivers. This partnership will create the world’s first combined GPS-Locata positioning receiver, providing high-accuracy position without the use of satellites.
A Hexagon network, powered by Locata, has already been successfully deployed and used in Western Australia on a large open cut gold mine, supporting their high precision guidance systems as a part of the product development process.
