Cell phone providers promote location-based services (LBS) as a way to send custom messages to subscribers based on their location—as reported by GPS or radiolocation and triangulation. Now LBSs are beginning to incorporate sensors.
Omnilink Systems Inc. claims it is the first to combine cellular, GPS, RFID, and sensor technologies to determine the status of mobile assets and people, and inform clients immediately if factors of interest (such as location, time, temperature, route, volume, and pressure) stray from predetermined ranges. Omnilink's Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT) technology works even inside buildings, buses, trains, and containers (cartons, pallets), the company says. Scalable software enables management by exception; alerts can be sent using a number of means (cell phone, email, etc).
The technology is being licensed and sold in markets such as the financial industry, health care, logistics, real estate and construction-site security, and transportation. But it has other interesting applications, too. For instance, a teenager carrying a cell phone who nears a sex offender's home could receive an alert, as could his or her parents. www.sensorsmag.com/0806/SClbs