The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.
Locating and tracking people and objects leads to increased safety and efficiency in many applications.
Unfortunately, traditional technologies such as GPS and WiFi tracking do not work well, or even at all, in many situations, such as underground, in open cut mines, city CBDs, indoors or disaster zones where existing infrastructure has been destroyed.
Current activities
Through substantial research and development in wireless localisation technology, CSIRO is developing the Wireless Ad hoc System for Positioning (WASP) which uses low cost, portable hardware to provide highly accurate tracking of people and objects where traditional technologies do not work and clear reception of radio signals is difficult.
This video explains how WASP works and where it can be used.
WASP features anchor nodes at known locations around the area being monitored communicating wirelessly with a small mobile tag attached to the object(s) being tracked.
CSIRO’s patented technology allows accurate tracking using low cost hardware that can be rapidly deployed and which does not rely on existing infrastructure or information.
It has advantages such as:
lower cost
high accuracy
high update rates
high portability
rapid set-up
no cabling required
operates in severe multipath radio environments.
Combining our localisation technologies with sensors means we are able to monitor, for example, the heart rate and temperature of emergency workers sent into a dangerous situation. With other sensors monitoring gas or radiation levels in the surrounding environment, we can provide exact readings at a known location.
Application
WASP is a highly flexible platform that can be tailored to a wide range of challenging environments and demanding applications.
We have developed and trialled our technology in three main application areas:
sport − tracking elite athletes for improved training
mining − tracking staff and vehicles in mines for improved safety and production monitoring
emergency management − tracking and monitoring fire fighters for improved incident response.
The main purpose of our WASP technology is to improve safety. For example, fire fighters about to enter a burning building currently use a manual tag board to account for personnel. With WASP the location of anchor nodes placed outside the building is determined with GPS and the location of the fire fighters inside the building (where GPS is not available) is determined by WASP.
Technical challenges
The biggest challenge in developing WASP was using inexpensive components to accurately track objects in difficult radio environments (where signals bounce off surfaces creating an echo-like effect known as multipath interference).
CSIRO developed world-leading algorithms that allow the time of arrival of signals, hence the position of the object being tracked, to be determined extremely accurately, even in the presence of severe multipath interference.
Partners
We are presently testing or further developing our technology with several organisations including:
Emergency Management Australia
New South Wales Fire brigades
Australian Institute of Sport.
Award
This work won the research and development prize in the 2009 Engineering Excellence Awards (Sydney division).
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.
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