XPLR-AOA Explorer Kits for Bluetooth Direction Finding and High Precision Indoor Positioning
u‑blox has announced the release of two explorer kits aimed at letting product developers evaluate the potential of Bluetooth direction finding and high precision indoor positioning. u‑blox XPLR-AOA-1 and XPLR-AOA-2 explorer kits are designed for low power consumption, simple deployment, and low cost of ownership. These 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. The u‑blox XPLR-AOA-1 and XPLR-AOA-2 explorer kits showcase one of the first complete Bluetooth-based tracking solutions – from the tag to the cloud – to reliably offer sub-meter-level accuracy in indoor environments.
The u‑blox XPLR-AOA-1 offers all the required components to evaluate AoA technology as it comprises of a u‑blox C211 antenna board, a u‑blox C209 tag and the necessary software. Its applications include detecting whether a person or an object is approaching a door, avoiding collisions between moving objects, and directing a camera at a moving tag. The u‑blox XPLR-AOA-2 demonstrates the u‑blox high precision indoor position proof of concept built around Bluetooth direction finding. The kit comprises four u‑blox C211 antenna boards, four u‑blox C209 tags, and all the software required to leverage AoA technology for diverse applications.
Both explorer kits use the u‑blox NINA-B4 Bluetooth 5.1 low energy module featuring nRF52833 Bluetooth Low Energy System-on-Chip (SoC). Running on the SoC’s embedded MCU, u‑blox u-connectLocate software calculates the angles of the incoming signals with no additional processing required. In the case of the XPLR-AOA-2, a positioning engine software is included to triangulate the position of the tag.
Features
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Out-of-the-box Bluetooth AoA explorer kit
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Antenna board with array of 5 dual-polarized antennas
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Tag with Bluetooth transmitter
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u-connectLocate with embedded angle calculation
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2-dimensional angle calculation supported
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USB interface to connect to a PC or other host system
Applications
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Access control
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Collision detection
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Smart appliances
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Indoor positioning
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Asset tracking
u‑blox is partnering with Traxmate whose enterprise asset tracking platform is supported by XPLR-AOA-2. This solution offers a hardware-agnostic, cloud-based tracking system that makes it easier to set up the tracking environment, create buildings, upload floor plans, and specify the placement of the anchor points. Users can use their offering to track the location of assets in real-time via the web or a dedicated smartphone app.
