Following a three-month pilot, Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS) has begun the permanent installation of a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-based real-time locating system (RTLS) from OnyxBeacon to track the movement of inventory through two of its warehouses in Orlando, Fla. The technology, known as Tracko, was commercially released in October 2016. The system consists of OnyxBeacon’s enterprise BLE beacons, mobile apps for iOS- or Android-based devices, and cloud-based RTLS management software in which location data can be collected, stored and analyzed.
Lockheed Martin RMS provides technology for helicopters; integrated air and missile defense; radar; and littoral, undersea or electronic warfare; as well as cyber solutions and training and logistics systems. The aerospace and defense company is using the Tracko system to track packages of components that will be used in its product production. However, OnyxBeacon will not reveal the number of beacons being used or the specific assets being monitored, and Lockheed Martin RMS declines to comment about the installation.
In general terms, says Claudiu Rusu, OnyxBeacon’s marketing communications manager, Tracko is intended to help companies locate high-value assets with an easy-to-install solution. Targeted customers include companies with warehouses, as well as production facilities, hospitals and any other businesses with sizable parking lots that wish to track large numbers of assets or vehicles.
Without automated location-tracking capability, companies can waste large amounts of time and labor searching for goods, such as materials for assembly, tools and equipment, or products for shipping. RTLS solutions, however, can be expensive to install.
OnyxBeacon is offering Tracko as what it calls a more flexible alternative to active RFID-based RTLS solutions, since the hardware infrastructure is relatively simple with BLE technology. Beacons can be attached to assets, and OnyxBeacon’s zone beacons are installed throughout a facility. Android- or iOS-based devices capture the beacon ID numbers from both asset and zone devices, then approximate each tagged item’s location.
Going a step further, Rusu says, the Tracko system is the first solution to use BLE with a software-based grid infrastructure equipped with buzzers. This provides users with a way to identify one beacon among many. For instance, if multiple beacon-tagged items are similar in appearance and located within a single zone, a user can input a request in the app to prompt the beacon he or she seeks to emit an audible buzz.
“Our solution is flexible, meaning that it can be custom-tailored according to the customer’s needs,” Rusu says. Users can determine how granular their location data needs to be, and install the necessary zone beacons accordingly, for instance.
First, an OnyxBeacon beaconing device is attached to an asset or a piece of inventory. The beacons are designed to be rugged for industrial use cases, and come with a built-in buzzer. They have a battery life of one to four years, depending on the frequency of transmissions, and can be set to transmit at a distance of between 3 meters and 70 meters (9.8 feet and 230 feet). The beacons are robust enough, Rusu says, to be used in industries such as mining.
Once beacon tags are attached, users can employ a 2D map of the facility in the Tracko software platform to set up heat maps, along with zones in which specific beacons are authorized. Individuals moving through the facility carry mobile devices with the Bluetooth function turned on. As they walk or drive around the premises, the devices receive beacon signals from asset and zone devices and forward that data to the server. The users can then collect that data, not only for real-time location information and alerts, but also to maintain a location history and conduct analytics based on those beacons’ movements.
“The main benefit Tracko brings to all deployments is a significant search time reduction,” Rusu states. Lockheed Martin RMS and other companies are interested in reducing the amount of time employees spend searching for assets in order to manage inventory and prevent loss. However, he adds, businesses are also discussing or launching pilots with OnyxBeacon to use the Tracko system to monitor workers or industrial vehicles for safety, as well as identify bottlenecks and optimize their workflows.
Several other companies, in addition to Lockheed Martin RMS, are also piloting the Tracko system for asset and inventory tracking. In the case of parking lots, beacons could be attached to vehicles to transmit an ID to area mobile devices, thereby creating location data regarding specific vehicles. In warehouses, goods stored on shelves or in bays can come with beacons attached to them, and that data can be collected by employees passing in forklifts or other vehicles. For work-in-progress, beacons attached to products being assembled would transmit to mobile devices, such as those carried or mounted at work stations, to update data about the status of a product’s production.
The cost of the solution is based on deployment size, Rusu says. “It is, in most cases, cheaper than similar technologies used in RTLS,” he adds, “such as UWB [ultra-wideband] or Wi-Fi.”