Location awareness refers to devices that can passively or actively determine their location. Navigational instruments provide location coordinates for vessels and vehicles. Surveying equipment identifies location with respect to a well-known location

wireless communications Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

device. The term applies to navigating, real-time locating and positioning support with global, regional or local scope. The term has been applied to

traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffi ...

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

, business administration and

leisure Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Leis ...

applications. Location awareness is supported by navigation systems, positioning systems and/or locating services. Location awareness without the active participation of the device is known as non-cooperative locating or detection.

History of terminology

The term originated for configurations settings of network systems and addressed network entities. ''Network location awareness'' (NLA) services collect network configuration and location information, and notify applications when this information changes. With the advent of global navigation satellite systems (

GNSS A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high p ...

) and radio-equipped mobile devices, the term was redefined to include consumer-focused applications. While location awareness began as a matter of static user location, the notion was extended to reflect movement. Context models have been proposed to support context-aware applications which use location to tailor interfaces, refine application-relevant data, increase the precision of information retrieval, discover services, make user interaction implicit and build smart environments. For example, a location-aware mobile phone may confirm that it is currently in a building.

Determining location

Description in logical terms uses a structured textual form. International standardisation offers a common method using ISO/TS 16952 as originated with German standards DIN EN 61346 and DIN EN 81346. Location in mathematical terms offers coordinates that refer to a nominated point of

reference Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a '' name'' ...

. Location in network terms relates to locating network nodes. These include: * ITU switched line access addressing according to

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

Q-Series standards, Telecommunications Signaling System#7 (SS7) and mirroring

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organ ...

Standards T1.110—General Information and subsequent standards. *

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

media access addressing according to MAC International standard ISO/IEC 10038 with ISO/IEC 11802 and ANSI/IEEE edition. * ISO procedure call addressing according to URN/ UUID International standards ISO/IEC 11578 and ISO/IEC 9834 and IETF .

Variants

"Crisp" locating offers precise coordinates, using wireless signals or optical sighting, possibly with phase angle measurements. Coordinates are relative to either a standardized system of coordinates, e.g.

WGS84 The World Geodetic System (WGS) is a standard used in cartography, geodesy, and satellite navigation including GPS. The current version, WGS 84, defines an Earth-centered, Earth-fixed coordinate system and a geodetic datum, and also desc ...

, or a fixed object such as a building plan. Real-time locating adds timely delivery of results, especially for moving targets. Real time locating is defined with ISO/ IEC 19762-5 and ISO/IEC 24730-1. Fuzzy locating offers less precision, e.g., presence "near" a point of reference. Measuring wireless power levels can supply this degree of precision. Less sophisticated systems can use wireless distance measurements to estimate a point of reference in polar coordinates (distance and direction) from another site. Index locating indicates presence at a known location, as with fixed

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electroma ...

readers and RFID tags.

Applications

Location-aware systems address the acquisition of coordinates in a grid (for example using distance metrics and lateration algorithms) or at least distances to reference points (for example discriminating presence at a certain choke point on a corridor or in a room of a building).

Navigation

Navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

and reckoning are key concerns for

seafarer A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

aviator An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

s and professional drivers. The task is to dynamically determine the current location and the time, distance and direction to destination.

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

served for regional demand and NAVSTAR satellite systems for global demand. Global navigation satellite systems (

) have become ubituitous in long-haul transport operation and are becoming a standard automobile feature.

Surveying

Surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ...

is the static complement to navigating. It is essential for delineating land ownership and for

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s and

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

s designing construction projects. Optical surveying technology preceded

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...

triangulating aids.

Business process

Currently location awareness is applied to design innovative

process control An industrial process control in continuous production processes is a discipline that uses industrial control systems to achieve a production level of consistency, economy and safety which could not be achieved purely by human manual control. ...

s, and is integral to ubiquitous and wearable computing. On mobile devices, location aware search can prioritize results that are close to the device. Conversely, the device location can be disclosed to others, at some cost to the bearer's privacy.

Warehouse and routing

RFID provides a time/location reference for an object, but does not indicate that the object remains at that location, which is sufficient for applications that limit access, such as tracking objects entering and leaving a warehouse, or for objects moving on a fixed route, such as charging tolls for crossing a bridge.

Consumer

Location awareness enables new applications for ubiquitous computing systems and

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive telephone call, calls over a radio freq ...

s. Such applications include the automatic reconfiguration of a computing device to suit the location in which it is currently being used (examples includ
ControlPlane
an
Locamatic
, or publishing a user's location to appropriate members of a social network, and allowing retailers to publish special offers to potential customers who are near to the retailers. Allegedly, individuals gain

self confidence Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having ...

with confirmation of current whereabouts.

Infrastructure

While governments have created global systems for computing locations, independent localized systems exist at scales ranging from one building to sub-national regions.

Local

Such solutions may apply concepts of

real-time locating system Real-time locating systems (RTLS), also known as real-time tracking systems, are used to automatically identify and track the location of objects or people in real time, usually within a building or other contained area. Wireless RTLS tags are ...

(RTLS) and wireless personal area network (WPAN),

wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

DECT Digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (Digital European cordless telecommunications), usually known by the acronym DECT, is a standard primarily used for creating cordless telephone systems. It originated in Europe, where it is the common ...

, with results in proprietary terms of

floor plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

s or room numbers. Local systems degrade as distance from the locality increases. Applications include the automatic reconfiguration of a computing device to suit the location in which it is currently being used.

Regional

This approach uses for example mobile phone systems, such as 3GPP, GSM or

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a telephone and mobile broadband standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement *** LTE Advanced Pro * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers produced by Compaq * ...

, typically returning information in standardized coordinates as with WGS84 in standardized formats such as National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) for outdoor usage or in symbolic coordinates referring to street addresses.

Global

This approach relies on global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology generally adopting WGS84 and NMEA. Applications include

avalanche rescue Avalanche rescue involves locating and retrieving people who have been buried in avalanches. Prevention There are several ways to prevent avalanches and lessen their power and destruction. They are employed in areas where avalanches pose ...

emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

and mountain rescue as well as with

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

, (SAR) and

combat search and rescue Combat search and rescue (CSAR) are search and rescue operations that are carried out during war that are within or near combat zones. A CSAR mission may be carried out by a task force of helicopters, ground-attack aircraft, aerial refueling ...

(CSAR).

Network location awareness

Network location awareness (NLA) describes the location of a node in a network.

Notes

External links

Capturing Ambient Intelligence for Mobile Communications through Wireless Sensor Networks
(Research Project)
Middleware Platform for Developing and Deploying Advanced Mobile Services
(Research Project)
Bring advances in mobile applications and services within the reach of users
(Research Project)
Middleware for context collection and personal profile exchange
{{DEFAULTSORT:Location Awareness Consumer electronics Emergency communication Geopositioning Pagers Radio navigation Radio paging Radio-frequency identification Rescue equipment Rescue Survival skills Telecommunications equipment Ubiquitous computing User interface techniques Wireless locating