Geolocationing System Using Mesh Gateway Beacons for Employee Safety
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Solution Overview
Problem
Employees in hospitality environments face increased personal security risks due to limited existing security measures in multi-room settings, necessitating improved systems for awareness and safety.
Innovation Solution
A geolocationing system utilizing a mesh network of gateway devices with wireless transceivers that receive beacon signals from personal location devices, determining their estimated location and sending gateway signals to a server for enhanced awareness and safety functionality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional security measures are used in multi-room hospitality environments, then the system is simple and easy to implement, but employee safety and awareness capabilities are insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the hospitality environment into multiple zones with gateway devices deployed in different rooms and corridors. Each gateway device independently monitors its local area and communicates with central servers, allowing the system to scale by adding more segmented units rather than implementing a complex monolithic system.
Solution Approach 2:
Gateway devices serve as intermediary components between personal location devices and central servers. These intermediaries receive beacon signals from employee devices, determine locations using received signal strength, and relay information to security personnel, simplifying the overall system architecture while enhancing safety capabilities.
2Measurement precision
If a mesh network of gateway devices is deployed throughout the environment, then location determination accuracy is improved, but device complexity and installation cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple gateway devices are merged into a cooperative mesh network where each device contributes to location determination. The system combines signals from multiple gateways to triangulate employee positions, improving measurement precision while distributing the computational burden across multiple simple devices rather than requiring one complex system.
Solution Approach 2:
Gateway devices are designed with multi-functionality, serving as wireless access points, location anchors, and security monitoring nodes simultaneously. This universal design reduces the need for separate specialized devices, managing network complexity while maintaining high location determination accuracy through their multiple roles.
3Loss of information
If real-time location tracking is implemented using beacon signals and signal characteristic modeling, then awareness capability is enhanced, but energy consumption and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Personal location devices transmit beacon signals periodically rather than continuously, reducing energy consumption while maintaining effective tracking. The system adjusts transmission intervals based on movement detection and location stability, consuming more energy only when necessary to maintain awareness capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements partial tracking by monitoring only relevant parameters (received signal strength indicator) rather than full signal analysis. Location updates are performed at selective intervals rather than continuously, providing sufficient awareness capability while minimizing energy consumption and processing requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
A geolocationing system and method for providing awareness in a multi-space environment, such as a hospitality environment or educational environment, are presented. In one embodiment of the geolocationing system, a vertical and horizontal array of gateway devices is provided. The vertical and horizontal array of gateway devices form a mesh network. Each gateway device includes a gateway device identification providing an accurately-known fixed location within the multi-space environment. Each gateway device includes a wireless transceiver that receives a beacon signal from a proximate wireless-enabled personal locator device. The gateway devices, in turn, send gateway signals via the mesh network to a server, which determines estimated location of the wireless-enabled personal location device with received signal characteristic modeling.