Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. (Tokyo: 6770; President & CEO:
Toshihiro Kuriyama) will commence supply of a High-Accuracy Positioning
System Evaluation Kit employing a Bluetooth® Low Energy chip in
November 2020 in recognition of heightened positioning needs.
There is a growing demand for high-accuracy positioning systems
in the Internet of Things (IoT), the automotive industry, and a wide range
of other sectors, including production and logistics. In the automotive
industry, alongside personal recognition, the ability to pinpoint the
location of a device is essential for enabling Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)
offerings, such as smartphone-based digital keys. However, positioning has
often come with issues relating to practicality and the burden on
development resources – for example, requirements for physical scanning
using barcodes or IC tags, or development of high-end systems employing GPS
and Wi-Fi®.
In responding to these issues, Alps Alpine has taken steps to
commercialize positioning modules using sub-GHz bands, including its
Long-Lifetime Asset Tracker for logistics operations. The company is
currently pursuing additional development of high-accuracy positioning
technology employing a Bluetooth® Low Energy chip, aiming for
commercialization and a start to mass production during 2021.
In advance of this, Alps Alpine has developed an evaluation kit
for use with a high-accuracy positioning system. The kit will be available
November 2020. Alps Alpine’s high-accuracy positioning technology employs an
original position detection algorithm developed by American firm Greina
Technologies, Inc. (RF Ranging, Inc.1). Alps Alpine acquired Greina
Technologies in May 2018. The system achieves high - accuracy positioning
due to being able to measure angle of arrival (AoA) and time of arrival
(ToA) simultaneously. Positioning employs a Bluetooth® Low Energy
chip that has been adopted widely in the market, enabling easy data
communication with existing systems that already use Bluetooth®. The
system therefore has excellent potential for implementation in society.
Furthermore, the chip inside the development kit is an NXP Semiconductors
KW38 Wireless Microcontroller, which has been extensively deployed within
automotive, consumer electronics and industrial equipment sectors and boasts
excellent security performance. Positioning and Bluetooth® Low Energy
communication need only a single chip. Under the Bluetooth® 5.1
specification, the angle of arrival (AoA) option is already standard.
Through participation in the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG)2,
Alps Alpine is currently pursuing standardization of time of arrival and
ranging technology with greater security.
By quickly establishing high - accuracy positioning technology
and supplying the evaluation kit to the market, Alps Alpine is looking to
heighten added value for finished products while contributing to a user
experience that brings safety, peace of mind and outstanding usability to
automotive and energy, healthcare and industry (EHI) markets.
*1
RF Ranging, Inc. is a sales company for Greina Technologies, Inc.
*2
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is a standardization body
supervising Bluetooth® specification development,
Bluetooth® technology and trademark licensing to manufacturers.
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