Wireless local positioning - concepts, solutions, applications

Local positioning will be one of the most exciting features of the next generation of wireless system. With this technique a mobile device can either gather the information about its position or can be localized from elsewhere. Completely new concepts and features in wireless data transmission and transponder systems is enabled by this. Self-organizing sensor networks, ubiquitous computing, location service billing, context dependent information services, tracking and guiding are only some of the numerous possible application areas. This paper gives an overview over existing wireless positioning solutions and attempts to structure different techniques and applications. Furthermore two novel positioning systems currently developed by Siemens are featured as system examples. First a neural cellular positioning system NCPS is introduced. This system is designed for positioning solutions for industrial, medical and consumer scenarios and is based on existing wireless voice and data infrastructure. Second the Siemens local positioning radar (LPR) is presented. This system is designed for cm-precision and realtime positioning in the area of industrial logistics, control and automation. The application examples are completed by an application in the field of augmented reality computing.