What is RTLS? And, who cares?

The Basics

RTLS is an acronym for Real-Time Location Systems.   RTLS is a rapidly growing focus area within the Internet of Things (IoT) space, brought to bear by a  collection of wireless technologies, all utilized in different ways in order to track the location of objects or people in real-time.  In simple terms, organizations place small tags on things that are important to them, and are provided with several (mostly) common features:  

• A live feed of their things’ positions on the globe or on an indoor map.  
• Real-time Events when tagged things cross thresholds like geofences, room entrances/exits, or shop floor boundaries which can trigger almost any action imaginable, for example:
• Text messages to a site manager
• Custom workflows in a Field application
• Automated processes in an ERP system
• Cybersecurity threat detection
• Real-time data fusion with other common IoT condition metrics (temperature, shock, orientation, humidity, etc.), resulting in a Digital Twin of business-critical assets.
• Data logging for post-analysis

The Industries

RTLS is valuable to every industry on the planet.  Full stop.  

Logistics, construction, oil, gas, green energy, manufacturing, retail, sports, consumer goods, warehousing, food service, healthcare, farming, ranching, advertising, and on…   In each, RTLS helps to dramatically improve safety and operational efficiency.  For example, during a plant turnaround, RTLS is used to coordinate high intensity interactions between material, personnel, and machinery. In logistics, RTLS helps track shipments and assets in real-time, enabling businesses to optimize their supply chain management.  In short, there are massive safety gains to be had, and operational waste that can be eliminated when an RTLS implementation is chosen for the right reasons.

Overall, RTLS provides real-time visibility into the location and status of assets or people, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions and improve their operations.

The Tech

RTLS implementations are comprised of many combinations of low-power wireless communication technologies, notably:

• Ultra Wideband (UWB)
• LoRa
• GPS
• 5G LTE
• Bluetooth  
• Wifi
• RFID
• Traditional Barcodes
• Other emerging methods  

If this seems like a large and confusing menu of technologies… don’t worry, you’re not alone.   Making matters more murky, most progressive RTLS implementations utilize more than two of the above options!   We’ll do a deeper dive into each approach and their pros and cons very soon.

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