Product category:
RFID hardware and software
News Release from: IDC - Intelligent Distributed Controls | Subject: Tracker devices
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 10 December 2007
Interactive devices track personnel,
machines
Interactive tracker devices have typical applications that include lone alarm, interactive machine control and remote control applications.
IDC has introduced two personnel interactive tracker devices based upon Zigbee a short range wireless personal area network that is ideal for tracking of both personnel and assets The two tracker devices provide true system on a chip solutions Designed for operation with IDC IEEE 802.15.4 wireless gateways, they use industry-leading CC2420 RF transceivers; have built-in positional location engines; and can remain dormant for months before waking up to report at either event- driven or planned time intervals
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 10 Dec 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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The personnel interactive trackers are push button devices; they comprise a key fob unit offering 1-5 buttons, and a larger hand-held unit delivering up to 9 buttons, all user- defined, in common with the key fob unit.
Both devices use the 802.15.4-based Zigbee, which is designed for remote control and sensors.
These can be many in number, but only require small packets of data and, in the main, extremely low power consumption for long life.
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Employing the ability of Zigbee to be integrated into small chips, the IDC personnel tracker devices deliver true "system-on-a-chip solutions", which integrate with Zigbee compatible hardware, offering facilities for user inputs and sensor networking.
Zigbee technology is characterised by small chips that consume little power, so the trackers are low power devices, with long battery life, that can "sleep" for 99 percent of the time until awakened either by a beacon signal or because a reporting period is due.
Zigbee differs from RFID in that it is a full- blown telemetry system in its own right, with the ability to provide wireless personal area networking (WPAN) i.e digital radio connections between computers and related devices, such as sensors.
This kind of network eliminates the use of physical data buses such as USB and Ethernet cables.
As such, Zigbee it is the ideal system to provide the copper-less warehouse or factory.
Zigbee is designed to enable two-way communications, so users can not only monitor and keep track of inventories, they can also feed this data to a computer system for data analysis.
In addition, Zigbee nodes offer the ability to be interrogated remotely by authorised personnel, enabling changes in system parameters or distribution patterns where necessary.
The power and flexibility inherent in Zigbee technology is exemplified by its ability to support hundreds of devices in star, tree or mesh formations.
The technology provides high reliability, self- healing, self-joining networks, with network protocol security encryption; it is also and is designed to operate in electrically noisy industrial environments. Request a free brochure from IDC - Intelligent Distributed Controls ...
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