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“E-LORAN is very complementary to GPS as its high powered signals can penetrate areas and maintain contact even where GPS signals are blocked – such as in buildings, tunnels, areas of dense foliage or during severe weather. We’ve been able to combine multiple positioning technologies into a single package and, given that governments around the world are realizing that an ‘all your eggs in one basket’ approach to critical navigation systems wasn’t the most prudent move, it’s possible to see eLORAN and GPS as becoming complementary to one another.” Under cover Switching now from the macro stage to the micro come parallel innovations being developed to provide positioning information actually within buildings – especially important in the ‘lone worker’ context of TETRA usage such as in prisons or large industrial sites. Once again, a range of technology options is on the table, some mature and some still at the pilot stage. Positioning specialist Zonith, for example, offers a range of Bluetooth-based systems and software development kits that allow the development of a variety of indoor applications. Eoin Foy, Zonith’s international channel sales manager, explains further: “There are many situations where some form of indoor positioning is required, such as with lone workers in hazardous environments. Bluetooth gives you a range of options for locating workers – from just knowing that they’re in a particular area or building to knowing that they’ve passed a specific point. “The wider issue, though, concerns how this information can be best used in different situations and integrated with other applications to really add value to the technology. One recent example of this was a project that we did for Dong Energy, Denmark’s largest power generator, who wanted to maximize the safety of their lone workers. “Not only did we implement standard lone worker features such as the requirement for regular ten-minute terminal activations by the employee and automatic alerts in the event of no response, but we also added on a number of enhancements to improve both safety and performance. These included integrating technical alarms coming from SCADA systems to go directly to the right workers’ radios based on their position and status; alarms warning workers if they go outside the range of the network; the opening of the appropriate outer gates to allow emergency access; and finally, automatic switch-off of lone worker status when they come into areas defined as safe – such as control rooms.” Tagged with RFID There are also obviously many situations where it is not necessary to know the exact location of every employee. In this context, RFID also has a role to play in terms of automatically checking people in and out of particular hazardous zones. Zonith, along with the Austrian wireless tracking specialist Identec Solutions, has implemented just such a system in a road tunnel construction project in Stockholm. With TETRA being used for on-site communications, RFID was used to track workers – even within buses – to monitor and control access to the site. In the event of an emergency, the system tracks workers as they are evacuated and can automatically alert emergency response teams to anyone left behind. The application of RFID in the right circumstances is also highlighted by Motorola’s Steve Northcott: “Very often it’s simply enough to know that someone is in a particular area without needing to precisely specify their location. The use of Bluetooth can present some issues in some situations where a worker is identified as being close to a location point – while they’re in fact on the other side of the wall from it – and so good GIS planning and information is very important. “In some situations, such as airports, there is also the possibility of using facial recognition systems to spot key workers in particular areas. In addition, WLAN systems have also been used by us to provide lone worker and attack alarms in a secure mental hospital.” New options Looking further ahead, a number of trial projects using other technologies such as UWB and INS have either been carried out or are underway at present – with a particular focus on reducing the dangers for emergency service personnel such as firemen when entering hazardous situations. Some important ground-breaking work was done on this a couple of years ago at Bristol University in the UK, under the ViewNet project. This brought together a number of user organizations and companies, including Thales, Sepura and Toshiba. By merging positioning information from a variety of sources – UWB beacons, GPS and personal INS and attitude sensors – the aim was to create an augmented reality-type visual tool that could help emergency commanders quickly map and track the scene and workers.
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