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•Article: RTLS Myths And Realities

The Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) market is expected to grow substantially over the next few years. According to industry analyst firm Yankee Group, the market for RTLS solutions will grow from $20 million in revenue in 2005 to $1.6 billion by 2010. Real Time Locating Systems are commonly used to track people or assets using various types of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

The RTLS market is maturing; more technologies are meeting the critical enterprise need to track assets in real time. These newer entries into the RTLS space attempt to lessen the two major historical barriers to RTLS adoption: the high cost of tags and infrastructure, and the environmental limitations on applications. Until recently, these two barriers have largely confined RTLS to certain truck yard management and container port applications.

The evolution of RTLS is changing both the breadth of available applications and their cost. On the other hand, hype, largely generated by the vendor community, continues to surround various technologies' ability to solve the RTLS problem.

Among the newest technologies to provide RTLS capabilities are 802.11-based location systems. The appeal of the technology is that RTLS can be enabled to use Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) operating on the 802.11a/b/g standard. The Wi-Fi RTLS and WLAN, used in combination with Wi-Fi-enabled laptops, tablet PCs, or personal digital assistants, eliminate the need for additional hardware—both tags and reader infrastructure — simplifying installation and lowering implementation costs.

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•Article: RTLS Myths And Realities

The second article, titled Mesh Networks And Active RFID — Complementary Or Competitive Technology? By Armando Viteri, RF Code, Inc., describes how many applications can benefit from the use of both mesh systems and active RFID technologies.

Mesh Networks And Active RFID — Complementary Or Competitive Technology? By Armando Viteri, RF Code, Inc.

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•Article: Mesh Networks And Active RFID

As WSN (wireless sensor networks) and RTLS (real time locating systems) markets are maturing, more technologies are being employed to meet the critical enterprise need to track and status assets in real time. These two categories are complementary – each fulfilling a specific application which in turn provides a whole solution. There is no "one size fits all" which both addresses the needs of large scale asset management and wireless asset data collection. On the other hand, these two technologies taken together can address a broad array of applications. This in turn is further broadened when combined with other AutoID technologies such as passive RFID and barcode. The evolution of AutoID and RTLS is changing both the breadth of available applications and their cost. On the other hand, hype, largely generated by the vendor community, continues to surround various technologies' ability to solve wireless sensing and RTLS applications.

In fact, many applications can benefit from the use of both technologies.

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•Article: Mesh Networks And Active RFID