Bluetooth 5.1 Might Usher in a New Era For RTLS, but the Market Needs to be Open to Cooperation

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1Q 2019 | IN-5389

In addition to more consequential features, Bluetooth Core Specification v5.1, announced on January 28, 2019 by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), brings enhancements in the form of minor upgrades to how Generic Attributes are stored and advertising channels are ordered. However, the most important part of the new specification is its new Radio Direction Finding (RDF) feature, which will allow RDF-ready devices to detect the direction from which a Bluetooth signal is coming, instead of simply estimating the distance between the devices from the transmitted signal’s intensity. This, in turn, will allow for a significant improvement in location accuracy, as it is expected that with RDF Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) location accuracy can drop down from a few meters to sub-meter level. RDF is not a new technique to radio-frequency technologies in general, nor is it new to Bluetooth applications, but being standardized by the Bluetooth SIG may foster interoperability in wayfinding and asset tracking cases that require higher accuracy than previously allowed by Received Signal Strength Identification (RSSI), and interoperability is an important aspect when it comes to the scalability of these solutions.

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RDF Is the Big News in Bluetooth v5.1

NEWS


In addition to more consequential features, Bluetooth Core Specification v5.1, announced on January 28, 2019 by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), brings enhancements in the form of minor upgrades to how Generic Attributes are stored and advertising channels are ordered. However, the most important part of the new specification is its new Radio Direction Finding (RDF) feature, which will allow RDF-ready devices to detect the direction from which a Bluetooth signal is coming, instead of simply estimating the distance between the devices from the transmitted signal’s intensity. This, in turn, will allow for a significant improvement in location accuracy, as it is expected that with RDF Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) location accuracy can drop down from a few meters to sub-meter level. RDF is not a new technique to radio-frequency technologies in general, nor is it new to Bluetooth applications, but being standardized by the Bluetooth SIG may foster interoperability in wayfinding and asset tracking cases that require higher accuracy than previously allowed by Received Signal Strength Identification (RSSI), and interoperability is an important aspect when it comes to the scalability of these solutions.

More Competition Between Technologies in the Manufacturing Space

IMPACT


An RDF-enabled device is capable of using angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD) methods to estimate the directions to and from which messages are being transmitted and received. When combined with RSSI, only one device is necessary to pinpoint the location of a transmitting beacon (as opposed to three devices using trilateration). Maintaining current anchor point density will allow RDF-enabled devices to provide much more accurate location for asset tracking or wayfinding. Without it, BLE’s location accuracy is of about 3 m, and it is claimed that RDF will allow it to reach sub-meter accuracy. With that, it may be able to better permeate certain markets that were previously most accessible to Ultra-Wideband (WUB) due to its higher location accuracy. A notable example of a manufacturing use case that involves asset tracking in the production line and across the supply chain is aircraft manufacturing, which requires the accurate tracking of parts and tools. Still, there is some skepticism that these technologies will indeed come into direct competition in the manufacturing space, since BLE does not fare as well as UWB in the metal-rich environments often encountered in this vertical. If, however, BLE could be shown to have comparable performance to UWB in a part of these applications, BLE could have the upper hand as its gateways and tags are significantly cheaper than UWB. This would also allow for the deployment of only one technology for all assets, as opposed to some implementations, which employ hybrid UWB/BLE readers and tags that have been distributed amongst the assets depending on accuracy needs.

 

While it seems like there are no new verticals to be entirely unlocked with RDF in Bluetooth, this feature will certainly improve the experience in some of the existing verticals. For instance, in the growing market of personal trackers, where users’ phones pick up signals from beacons like those sold by Tile, Chipolo, and TrackR. Now, instead of playing Marco Polo with the tracker by only knowing if one is “getting warmer,” the user will be able to follow the signal directly to its origin. In proximity services use cases, a device will be able to determine which beacon the user is facing and offer specific information on it. This can be useful in museums, where nearby pieces of an exhibit with beacons could cause ambiguities in the receiving device as to which piece the user is looking at. The same applies to retail applications, with in-store offers on nearby shelves.

 

It must be remarked, however, that migrating into RDF is not a matter of a simple firmware update, as AoA techniques require an array of antennae to work and thus RDF capabilities will be dependent on migrating into new hardware. For the mass smartphone market, this means users will need to buy new RDF-capable phones, and for asset-tracking purposes, establishments that have already deployed a Real-Time Location System (RTLS) will need to replace their anchor points with new ones if they wish to employ AoA for better accuracy. As some Integrated Circuit (IC) vendors like Nordic Semiconductor have already pledged to release v5.1-compliant chipsets, it is a matter of time before the new standard trickles into tags and anchor points. Therefore, we can expect this v5.1 rollout to last a few years, as old beacons run out of batteries or otherwise become obsolete and are replaced by new ones.

The Standard Is Here; Now, OEMs Must Look for Affordability and Form Factor

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RDF as a capability of some radio-frequency systems is more than a century old, and even in the Bluetooth ecosystem AoA has already been in use by Quuppa for years, who, as a company, greatly helped drive the development and adoption of the v5.1 standard. However, the setting of a feature in proverbial Bluetooth stone, much like what happened with mesh networking in 2017, helps foster adoption and interoperability among players. In that sense, businesses should attempt to develop partnerships with similar companies for the interoperability of tags and readers, for instance, to combat users’ anxiety about being stuck with the only company that provides a certain technology, which can be a significant obstacle to its adoption.. In this sense, standardization is going to foster better scalability of the market, which will help BLE reach the projected 300 million beacon shipments in 2023.

It is also worth noting that a great part of what drove Bluetooth’s success in the market was that it was largely user-driven, and adoption on mobile phones and other mass consumption devices gave businesses the space necessary to try out new solutions. With an expected almost 2 billion handsets actively using Bluetooth in 2023, there is no shortage of an addressable market to grow into.  As such, IC vendors and smartphone manufacturers should make sure that the addition of Bluetooth antenna array into handsets for RDF does not constitute a large burden when it comes to form factor and cost, for unless RDF becomes commonplace in handsets beyond the high-end ones, companies in the personal tracker and proximity services verticals will not be able to reap the benefits of v5.1.

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