Location, Location, Location – An update

Location Intelligence Analytics has become a business function with its own market reports.  When I first published the post below the focus of location analytics was mostly on “things”, i.e. “Where are our things?” I followed up about a year later as the focus became more operational and started to move from things to data streams. The point was that even traditional information-focused businesses had to think about the origination location of their information. Location Intelligence Analytics is now an IoT business function driving awareness of the importance of location information in operations.  Markets with distributed assets, e.g. energy and transportation, are ahead of those who still think of themselves as geographically constrained, e.g. healthcare and education. Look for this to change as the IoT makes connected care and online, experiential education the norm over the next few years.

Location, Location, Location – Originally posted July 13, 2015

It’s long been the mantra of realtors – “There are three keys to the value of a house: Location, Location, Location.”  It’s just as true for the IoT. Last week Uber bought 100 engineers and the mapping technology from Microsoft. Most of the time Uber is in the news because they are being charged with creating an open market and providing excellent customer service in some country or city that has no real interest in either. But they are also one of the foremost innovators in the IoT driving new business models and new customer experiences using IoT technology.

So why would they buy a mapping technology when there are so many from which to choose and they are all basically free? The answer obviously lies not in the cost of the information but in its quality and associated value. IBM says the following in their new white paper on IoT entitled “The Economy of Things”:

Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), physical assets are turning into participants in real-time global digital markets. The countless types of assets around us will become as easily indexed, searched and traded as any online commodity….Our research shows this will create a new “Economy of Things” with significant consequences.

The key here is that an asset or the data coming from that asset only has value if the user has knowledge of the location of the asset. The value of connected things is intrinsically tied to the knowledge of their relationship to each other in space and time. Arguably the two most successful IoT applications thus far are Mobile Resource Management and Precision Agriculture. MRM is presently a $14.89B market and Precision Ag $2.55B growing at 24% and 12% CAGR respectively. While connectivity, and in the case of MRM mobile connectivity, is important to both, the fundamental value of the data in these applications is knowing the position of an asset in space and time during operations. Both MRM and Precision Ag started with simple GPS location of the vehicles involved but as the applications developed the application of geo-location spread to the individual assets on the vehicles or those carried by the vehicles, e.g. sprayers, pallets, cargo, etc.. Logistics is all about knowing the identity and position of things in real time. 

Geo-location today is accomplished primarily with three uses of technology.

1.   Global Positioning Systems – Assets are equipped with GPS or GLONASS sensors and then connected via various networks to communicate the assets identify and position to the operational system. In some cases the GPS sensing is augmented with additional differential sensing systems like RTK or CPGPS to provide greater precision and accuracy. This is the case for Precision Ag applications today.

2.   Triangulation – In this case the assets are equipped with a radio that is then connected to three or more fixed radios who positions are known. By various triangulation algorithms usually based on time-of-flight the position of the mobile asset can be calculated from the known positions. This was how LORAN and cell phone locations were determined before GPS became a common feature of smart phones. This is also how your smartphone knows where you are within a building, where GPS does not work.

3.   Dead reckoning – This is the term we use for the combination of proximity and inertial tracking for the purpose of location. The location function starts with a known last position. Today this can come from a last GPS measurement or by being in proximity of a beacon. If the asset is fitted with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) like MEMs accelerometers, gyros, and magnetometers the assets position relative to the last known position can be calculated. The error of dead reckoning systems grows with time, of course, so additional check in’s with known points are needed to make this a true real time solution.

Both Triangulation and Dead Reckoning are still relatively expensive as a function of precision and accuracy, e.g. useful positioning of items in a retail store is still prohibitively expensive. However, the continued deployment of IoT and integration of systems is expected to make indoor asset tracking both precise and affordable in the next few years. Watch the following technologies as future geolocation solutions:

·        BLE Beacons – Before GPS surveyors used installed landmarks as reference points for geolocation. In the future BLE Beacons, will provide geolocation reference points both indoors and out thereby giving users the ability to either track moving assets or provide contextually aware information about assets.

·        Long range radio triangulation – Long range radios like LoRa provide the RF penetration necessary to provide triangulation solutions for location both indoors and out. Look for these systems to be combined with differential technologies similar to RTK to provide the precision vs cost to create new asset tracking solutions.

·        Mapping site mashing – Companies like Uber will continue to drive mapping information such that it will provide better and better geolocation solutions for applications that leverage smartphones and smart devices that can leverage those API’s.  

So back to Uber. Why would they buy resources to build something that they can get for free today? The answer is that they are in the mobile asset resource management business – same as MRM and Precision Ag. The quality of their customer’s experience depends upon the real-time knowledge of the position of the driver and the customer. As they penetrate dense urban jungles traditional GPS mapping systems will not allow them to identify upon which corner a customer is standing or allow a customer to identify which of the many cars on the avenue is the one that will pick them up. Thus Uber is investing in geolocation technology in the same way the Precision Ag companies invested in RTK. 

Location, location, location. Three words to live by if you are contemplating entering the IoT.