Ekahau Unveils Ekahau RTLS Controller

By Raju Shanbhag

TMCnet Contributor

 

Ekahau announced the launch of Ekahau (News - Alert) RTLS Controller (ERC), an upgrade to its flagship RTLS solution. This new upgradation provides tighter integration with wireless network infrastructure platforms from leading network provider, the company announced.

 

Ekahau real time location system (RTLS) is the only WiFi (News - Alert)-based location tracking solution that can operate over any brand or generation of WiFi network while offering sub room-, room-, floor- and building-level accuracy.

 

ERC builds on and replaces the Ekahau Positioning Engine (EPE) as Ekahau's fifth-generation location server. Using non-associating tags and providing the capability to track any WiFi device on leading controller-based networks; ERC incorporates EPE's patented algorithms and innovations, and expands it by tightly integrating with wireless network infrastructure. ERC is also able to perform two-way communication with WiFi location tags over the WiFi network unlike competing solutions, the company has stated.

 

"The upgrades to our location tracking solution are part of a greater evolution. No longer is RTLS used just as a 'location engine' to simply find assets," said Arttu Huhtiniemi, vice president of Product Management at Ekahau, in a press release. "Today's RTLS must be able to perform a wide variety of supporting functionalities like text messaging, over-the-air tag (News - Alert) management, sensing, execution of business rules, and several other unique functions that leverage the overall Ekahau architecture."

 

For many industries including healthcare, mining and manufacturing, Ekahau's WiFi-based RTLS solution has emerged as the number one choice, the company has stated. According to the company, Ekahau claimed the top spot in full RTLS system deployments winning four out of five head-to-head customer evaluations. Various healthcare systems have ordered enterprise-wide RTLS solutions with thousands of WiFi tags for assets from Ekahau.

 

In March 2009, the company announced the release of Ekahau HeatMapper, a coverage mapping tool for 802.11 WiFi networks. The offering can be downloaded for free and is an easy-to-use coverage mapping tool for Windows-based laptops. Ekahau HeatMapper illustrates wireless signal strength on color-coded heat maps and is designed for consumers and small office users, who have relatively small wireless networks.