A method for locating an element which can be transported by aircraft includes, for a first position of an aircraft: a) transmitting, from an antenna located in the aircraft, a first message intended for the transportable element; b) receiving, on the antenna, a second message transmitted by the transportable element upon receipt of the first message; c) obtaining a travel time of the first and second messages; d) determining a distance from the travel times; e) determining that the element is inside the aircraft if the distance is less than a value and that the element is outside the aircraft if the distance is greater than the value.

Systems and methods of estimating a location of a mobile computing device are provided. For instance, acoustic signals can be received from one or more transmitting devices associated with a real-time locating system. A set of peaks can be selected from the received acoustic signals. A first set of transmitter locations can be assigned to the selected set of peaks. The first set of transmitter locations can be specified by an acoustic model specifying a plurality of transmitter locations within an acoustic environment in which the one or more transmitting devices are located. A first model path trace associated with the first set of transmitter locations can be compared to the received acoustic signals. A location of the mobile computing device can be estimated based at least in part on the comparison.

An interrogation device, for locating a wireless device, includes a receiver and digital processing circuitry. The receiver includes one or more receiver stages having adjustable gains, and is configured to receive from the wireless device a signal that carries a packet including a direction-finding field, wherein, during reception of the direction-finding field, multiple different temporal sections of the received signal traverse different wireless channels due to switching among different antennas in the interrogation device or in the wireless device and thus have multiple different received-signal levels. The digital processing circuitry is configured, based on the multiple received temporal sections of the signal during reception of the direction-finding field, to (i) adapt the adjustable gains of the receiver stages and (ii) estimate a position of the wireless device.

The present invention relates to a method for managing an automatic warehouse and for locating a mobile target, such as a person or a manual guided vehicle (1).

A method includes obtaining or holding available a radio map that has been determined based on radio node observation data of radio signals emitted from radio nodes of a radio node network. The method obtains asset observation data of one or more radio signals that have been emitted from an asset and observed by radio nodes of the radio node network. The method also determines a position estimate of the asset based on the asset observation data and the radio map. A corresponding system is also disclosed.

Methods and apparatuses are provided for use in monitoring product placement within a shopping facility. Some embodiments provide an apparatus configured to determine product placement conditions within a shopping facility, comprising: a transceiver configured to wirelessly receive communications; a product monitoring control circuit coupled with the transceiver; a memory coupled with the control circuit and storing computer instructions that when executed by the control circuit cause the control circuit to: obtain a composite three-dimensional (3D) scan mapping corresponding to at least a select area of the shopping facility and based on a series of 3D scan data; evaluate the 3D scan mapping to identify multiple product depth distances; and identify, from the evaluation of the 3D scan mapping, when one or more of the multiple product depth distances is greater than a predefined depth distance threshold from the reference offset distance of the product support structure.

The invention discloses a positioning light beam emission system, a method and an indoor positioning system. A positioning space includes a plurality of positioning sub-spaces. A plurality of positioning light beam emission devices are fixed at predetermined positions in the plurality of positioning sub-spaces, respectively, and the positioning light beam emission devices are used to emit positioning light beams toward the respective positioning sub-spaces in a sweeping manner with a predetermined sweeping cycle and predetermined angular velocity. Each positioning light beam has a linear cross section and is rotated about a rotation axis in the sweeping manner, the rotation axis not perpendicular to an extended direction of the linear cross section.

The present disclosure provides an indoor direction finding method, which is applied to an indoor direction finding system. The indoor direction finding system comprises a transmitter and a receiver. A Bluetooth communication link is established between the receiver and the transmitter. The indoor direction finding method is performed by the receiver with the steps of: obtaining a receiver coordinate information of the receiver; receiving a Bluetooth signal moving in single direction at the receiver coordinate information; confirming a relative position information of the transmitter according to the receiver coordinate information and the Bluetooth signal moving in single direction. By obtaining the Bluetooth signal moving in single direction, the azimuth of the transmitter can be confirmed for improving the indoor direction finding accuracy.

Systems and methods of estimating a location of a mobile computing device are provided. For instance, acoustic signals can be received from one or more transmitting devices associated with a real-time locating system. A set of peaks can be selected from the received acoustic signals. A first set of transmitter locations can be assigned to the selected set of peaks. The first set of transmitter locations can be specified by an acoustic model specifying a plurality of transmitter locations within an acoustic environment in which the one or more transmitting devices are located. A first model path trace associated with the first set of transmitter locations can be compared to the received acoustic signals. A location of the mobile computing device can be estimated based at least in part on the comparison.

Methods and apparatuses are provided for use in monitoring product placement within a shopping facility. Some embodiments provide an apparatus configured to determine product placement conditions within a shopping facility, comprising: a transceiver configured to wirelessly receive communications; a product monitoring control circuit coupled with the transceiver; a memory coupled with the control circuit and storing computer instructions that when executed by the control circuit cause the control circuit to: obtain a composite three-dimensional (3D) scan mapping corresponding to at least a select area of the shopping facility and based on a series of 3D scan data; evaluate the 3D scan mapping to identify multiple product depth distances; and identify, from the evaluation of the 3D scan mapping, when one or more of the multiple product depth distances is greater than a predefined depth distance threshold from the reference offset distance of the product support structure.