omlox is an open and interoperable standard for a real-time location system (RTLS) in industry. The focus of omlox is to define open interfaces for a vendor-neutral location-tracking system. omlox enables interoperability and flexibility amongst different trackable providers within single or multiple tracking zones.
omlox consists of two parts…
- omlox core zone
- omlox hub
… and standardizes their interfaces.
omlox Core Zone
The omlox core zone works in conjunction with open interfaces and ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. The UWB radio standard is often used for indoor locating tasks in factories, such as navigating automated guided vehicles (AGV), autonomous mobile robots (AMR) or drones, and locating materials or orders. On the one side, the omlox air-interface connects products (e.g. AMRs) and infrastructure (e.g. satellites). On the other side, the omlox hub API connects the core zone with the hub. Interoperability allows companies to easily network all omlox-enabled UWB products, regardless of the manufacturer.
Why use UWB?
- High accuracy & precision (< 10cm)
- Low sensitivity to interference (4GHz)
- High data transmission rates
- Low power consumption
- Guaranteed interoperability
Different devices from different suppliers
What about Line of Sight and UWB?
- omlox needs to be able to handle No Line of Sight (NLoS) situations and reflections
- Under these common industrial circumstances, UWB is the only appropriate air-interface
- Sensors are able to distguish reflections
- Measurement failure due to NLoS is minimized via trilateration
omlox hub
In addition to UWB, other locating technologies such as RFID, 5G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS are often used in production, delivery, and storage. The omlox hub enables interoperability and flexibility across these different complementary zones. Applications such as production control systems, goods tracking, and navigation can therefore be networked across zones.
What are the benefits?
- Open and interoperable (no lock-in effect)
- Display of all elements in a smart factory map
- Seamless indoor and outdoor tracking of assets across technology boundaries
- Use of existing locating services (brownfield & retrofit)
- Significantly lower amortization costs; elimination of expensive integration prjects
- Easy to implement (plug and play)
- Broad consortium with a wide range of products
omlox unifies indoor and outdoor location-tracking technologies:
omlox hub API
Currently the omlox hub supports two connection and data transmission types – HTTPS/REST and WebSocket.
Zone API
The zone API describes the setup of a zone, including associated spatial operations like geo-coordinate transformation.
Trackable API
The trackable API deals with handling of trackable things within the omlox ecosystem.
Provider API
The provider API describes the setup of a location provider and the advertisements of location updates to an omlox hub.
Fence API
The fence API handles the creation, update and deletion of fences.