Author: Support

Using iBeacons with Intelligent Displaying and Alerting Systems

There’s recent research into using iBeacons with intelligent displaying and alerting systems (SICIAD) typically found in public buildings and offices. The paper An Intelligent Low-Power Displaying System with Integrated Emergency Alerting Capability by Marius Vochin, Alexandru Vulpe, Laurentiu Boicescu, Serban Georgica Obreja and George Suciu of the University of Bucharest shows how beacons can be used to determine indoor position of mobile terminals or signalling points of interest.

An Android app uses the beacons to detect location and sends it to the SICIAD system. The researchers concluded that:

“By using an appropriate number of beacons and optimal positions, a relatively precise indoor localization can be obtained with iBeacon technology”

Bluetooth 5 Packet Sniffing

When testing beacons and Bluetooth LE, nRF Connect is usually sufficient. However, if you need deeper analysis of Bluetooth you need to use a packet sniffer.

NCC Group has a new open source sniffer for Bluetooth 5 that also works with Bluetooth 4.x. You need to run the software on a Texas Instruments (TI) CC26x2 board.

The source code and instructions are available on GitHub.

Industry 4.0 SME

We have been involved in writing some articles for a new magazine site Industry 4.0 SME.

The site is targeted at CEOs, COOs, CTOs and innovation managers in Small and Medium size Enterprises (SMEs). It provides high level articles on the opportunities, strategies and technologies involved in Industry 4.0. It’s updated daily with the latest Industry 4.0 news.

Windows Bluetooth Framework

Bluetooth Framework is a library for using Bluetooth on Windows. There are editions for .NET, c++ and VCL. While the framework has many features, those of particular interest to Bluetooth LE developers are:

  • Enumerating and managing local Bluetooth radios
  • Searching for remote Bluetooth enabled devices
  • Measuring RSSI
  • Bluetooth LE (BLE) GATT profile client
  • Monitor Bluetooth LE beacons: Proximity beacon (iBeacon), Alt Beacon and Eddystone Beacons
  • Capture raw Bluetooth LE advertisement frames
  • Custom Bluetooth LE Advertising

Beacon Based Navigation for the Visually Impaired

There’s a useful recent research paper by Basem AL-Madani, Farid Orujov, Rytis Maskeliūnas, Robertas Damaševičius,and Algimantas Venčkauskas on Fuzzy Logic Type-2 Based Wireless Indoor Localization System for Navigation of Visually Impaired People in Buildings.

The paper explores indoor location algorithms and implements a fingerprinting system using RSSI that achieves an average error of 0.43m.

The authors’ ‘fuzzy logic type-2’ system allows for complex environments such as buildings with glass/metal corridors. They comment that fingerprinting requires pre-configuration which is one of the main disadvantages of this method.

BeaconWalker Aids Solution Development

If you are developing a beacon solution it can be tricky to set up physical scenarios where beacons come and go. Peter Alt of Philadelphia Museum of Art has a useful iOS app called BeaconWalker that simulates a sequence of iBeacons with custom durations per beacon.

The Swift source code is also available on GitHub. While you are there also take a look at the museum’s mobile framework, a collection of utilities for caching data, iBeacon ranging and indoor navigation. There’s also framework demo that explains how the framework features work.

Nordic Wireless Quarter Magazine Available

Nordic, the manufacturer of the System on a Chip (SoC) in many beacons, has the latest issue of Wireless Quarter Magazine. It showcases the many uses of Nordic SoCs.

News from the world of beacons includes:

  • Quuppa partnership – this might accelerate Bluetooth direction finding solutions
  • Beacons helping visually impaired
  • Beacons for robot perception and interaction
  • Beacons in restaurants

Beacons on Cruise Ships

There’s a new in-depth article at PC Mag on how Carnival use beacons, based on Bluetooth and NFC, on cruise ships. As the article says, “it provides an excellent case study in how to use technology to enhance your customer’s experience”.

The beacons are branded as ‘OceanMedallion’ and allow:

  • Guests to unlock their stateroom
  • Guests to pay for drinks or items in shops
  • Guests to play in the casino
  • Housekeeping staff to keep track of whether or not the stateroom is occupied

7,000 sensors throughout each ship detect the beacons and 4000 interactive portals provide information for guests. A mobile app can also be used that can help navigate about the ship and find fellow passengers.

Beacons provide a way to eliminate friction in the passenger experience. The software system uses edge devices to perform operations close to where the user has been detected so as to reduce latency and network traffic. Nevertheless, the system attempts to centralise data so as not to replicate information.

The system provides Carnival with lots of useful data on guest preferences, transactions (for billing) and preferred areas of the ship. Aggregated information might be used to determine heavily used areas (for maintenance), pinch points and redundant areas of the ship to feed into improvements to the ship.

Read about Beacons in Hospitality

Read about Beacons in Visitor Spaces