Flexible Adhesive Tracking System for Heterogeneous Localization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing tracking devices face challenges in providing continuous tracking information across various environments due to limitations in infrastructure support and accuracy, especially in urban and indoor settings.
Innovation Solution
A low-cost, multi-function tracking system integrated within a flexible adhesive structure, allowing for the combination of different localization techniques and performing ancillary functions, such as asset management and logistics tracking.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple locationing components are incorporated into a tracking device, then localization functionality across heterogeneous environments is provided, but device complexity and integration difficulties increase
Solution Approach 1:
The tracking device is divided into multiple independent adhesive segments, each capable of performing location tracking independently. This segmentation allows the system to provide diverse localization functionalities across heterogeneous environments while maintaining low individual complexity, as each segment can be optimized for specific locationing techniques without the burden of integrating all possible components.
Solution Approach 2:
Each adhesive segment is designed as a universal platform that can support multiple locationing techniques (GPS, wireless-based, acoustic, dead reckoning) through a common architecture. The segments incorporate diverse locationing components that can be activated based on environmental conditions, enabling a single device type to perform multiple tracking functions without requiring separate specialized devices for each technique.
2Ease of operation
If tracking components are integrated within a flexible adhesive structure, then ease of deployment and unobtrusive integration are achieved, but manufacturing precision and assembly complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The tracking components are integrated within a flexible adhesive structure consisting of thin film layers. This flexible substrate approach allows the device to be deployed unobtrusively on various surfaces while maintaining sufficient manufacturing precision through controlled lamination processes. The thin film structure accommodates component flexibility requirements and enables precise alignment during assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
The adhesive segment employs a composite structure combining flexible adhesive materials with electronic components. This composite approach allows for precise integration of tracking components within the adhesive matrix, maintaining both the flexibility needed for unobtrusive deployment and the precision required for component alignment through multi-layer lamination techniques.
3Measurement precision
If infrastructure support is required for localization techniques, then tracking accuracy is improved, but adaptability to environments without infrastructure decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The tracking system dynamically selects and switches between different locationing techniques based on environmental conditions and infrastructure availability. When infrastructure is present (satellites, wireless access points, acoustic sources), the system utilizes these for high-accuracy tracking. When infrastructure is absent, the system automatically transitions to alternative techniques such as dead reckoning or mesh network-based locationing, maintaining continuous tracking capability across diverse environments.
Solution Approach 2:
The adhesive segment incorporates a mesh network as an intermediary layer that enables communication between tracking components and external systems. This mesh network facilitates location information sharing and can bridge gaps between infrastructure-supported and infrastructure-less environments, allowing accurate tracking even when traditional infrastructure is unavailable by creating ad-hoc communication pathways.
Data Source
AI summary
A low-cost, multi-function tracking system with a form factor that unobtrusively integrates the components needed to implement a combination of different localization techniques and also is able to perform a useful ancillary function that otherwise would have to be performed with the attendant need for additional materials, labor, and expense. An example tracking system is implemented as an adhesive product that integrates tracking components within a flexible adhesive structure in a way that not only provides a cost-effective platform for interconnecting, optimizing, and protecting the components of the tracking system but also maintains the flexibility needed to function as an adhesive product that can be deployed seamlessly and unobtrusively into various tracking applications and workflows, including person and object tracking applications, and asset management workflows such as manufacturing, storage, shipping, delivery, and other logistics associated with moving products and other physical objects.