Welcome to the w5 Consortium

Birds of a Feather Meeting

February 13th 2001

Introductions…

Dave MarplesTelcordia Technologies Inc.dmarples@research.telcordia.com

Pilgrim BeartactiveRF Ltdpilgrim.beart@activerf.com

…a few thanks to our sponsors;

Today’s Mission is to;

Characterize w5 Identify common requirements Review current industry initiatives Network and make contacts Spot business opportunities Make links between Industry and Academia Determine a route forwards

Schedule

9.00 Introductions9.20 Meet your Collaborators10.10 Other industry initiatives (AIM)10.30 Coffee / Tea sponsored by activeRF11.00 A wider perspective for location11.20 Technical Challenges & Issues12.30 Lunch - sponsored by

Marconi Communications Inc.

Schedule

14.00 Other industry initiatives (WLIA)

14.30 Coffee / Tea - sponsored by MTI

15.00 The Route Forwards

16.30 Close

What is the mission of w5?

To define open standards forthe real-time exchange of location

information between independently specified and developed systems, with

concerns of privacy, authentication, timeliness and accuracy explicitly

addressed.

With and Without w5…

App1

App2

App3

RTLS1

RTLS2

RTLS3

RTLS4

RTLS5

App1

App2

App3

RTLS1

RTLS2

RTLS3

RTLS4

RTLS5

Co

mm

on A

PIs

A few thoughts…

The guy sitting next to you is still your competitor. We have to enable applications, because these

deliver user value, and infrastructure alone does not. The photocopier is our friend – if we can adopt an

existing standard rather than creating one, we should do so.

The greatest single risk to success in these markets is user perception – privacy is job 1.

Next…

Presentations from two other industry initiatives set up in the location space

What w5 is aboutA slightly more technical overview

Pilgrim Beart

CEO, activeRF Ltd

Generic Sensing Infrastructure

servertags

nodestransmission

clients

W5

Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Who, What…

Who A user, represented by a device (e.g. ID tag) or

attribute (e.g. fingerprint, voiceprint) User has meaning within the context of the applicationsWhat An RFID, numeric or textual Typically a serial number, GSM number etc. Maybe sensing infrastructure dependent, made generic

via database lookup…

…Where…

Location or even micro-location Longitude/latitude may only be appropriate for certain

applications…– Could be (x,y) relative to defined point, but– Often more useful to say “Board Room” or “Warehouse 7” –

location ID. Will have intrinsic granularity and uncertainty May be nested (i.e. one location can be within another) Location may need to be inferred from transitions,

such as when going through doorways

…When…

Queries may be real-time with live updates/triggers If history is maintained queries historical queries may

be possible (where was x at time y?) Latency, Granularity & Synchronisation are all

important– Timezone of event-stamp (capture). UTC.– Timezone of event-query (client)

Timestamping techniques can be used to eliminate duplicate captures from the sensing infrastructure.

…Why…

Represents context for location actions. Vital to condense mass of data down Turning data into meaningful KPIs Same information may be presented in different

contexts (work, home etc.) which may require different actions.

The user may have context outside of their current role which must also be captured.

“Fedex”, and “wood for the trees”

…and Who wants to know?

Privacy– Assets don’t have rights, people do.– If tracking people (directly or indirectly) are they

aware, can they control, are they benefiting? Security

– Commercial data is sensitive. Encrypt. Anonymise. Context

– Users may allow their location information to be released for some reasons, but not for others.

w5 isn’t…

Not a low-level physical “tag” standard Not an RFID standard Not tied to a particular location technology

– Enables heterogeneity

w5 is…

A high-level interface, an “API” Serial data (across physical link or IP socket) XML and other “intelligent data” (w5ML?) Database storage and interrogation Pull (polled) or Push (event-driven, triggers) Publish & Subscribe Agents (“tell me when X & Y are in same place”) Client-centric (peer-to-peer) or Server-centric … and it supports micro-location