u-blox presents Bluetooth AoA explorer kits for high precision indoor positioning

Designed for low power consumption, simple deployment, and low cost of ownership, the u-blox XPLR-AOA-1 and XPLR-AOA-2 explorer kits make it easy to test the technology’s capabilities to enable a variety of applications including access control, collision detection, smart appliances, indoor positioning, and asset tracking.

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology has solved the problem of locating people or assets outdoors. Meanwhile, no technology has yet managed to achieve widespread adoption for localizing people or assets in indoor environments such as warehouses. Recognizing the growing demand for more accurate indoor positioning solutions, the Bluetooth SIG released Bluetooth direction finding, offering a major improvement over previous RSSI (receiver signal strength indicator)-based solutions.

Bluetooth direction finding makes it possible to determine the direction that radio signals travel from a mobile tag to one or several fixed anchor points. Using angle-of-arrival (AoA) technology, anchor points comprising an antenna array that is connected to a Bluetooth receiver can detect the direction, or angle, to the mobile tag, which transmits a Bluetooth signal. When a constellation of such multi-antenna anchors is deployed, AoA technology can be used to triangulate the precise location of a mobile device or tag.