Location awareness
Location awareness refers to devices that can determine their location. Navigational instruments provide location coordinates for vessels and vehicles. Surveying equipment identifies location with respect to a well-known location wireless communications device.
The term applies to navigating, real-time locating, and positioning support with global, regional or local scope. The term has been applied to traffic, logistics, business administration, and leisure applications. Location awareness is supported by navigation systems, positioning systems, and/or locating services.
Location awareness without the active participation of the device is known as non-cooperative locating or detection.
History of terminology[edit]
The term originated for configurations settings of network systems, and addressed network entities. Network location awareness (NLA) services collect network configuration and location information, and notify applications when this information changes. With the advent of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and radio-equipped mobile devices, the term was redefined to include consumer-focused applications.
While location awareness began as a matter of static user location, the notion was extended to reflect movement. Context models have been proposed[1] to support context-aware applications which use location to tailor interfaces, refine application-relevant data, increase the precision of information retrieval, discover services, make user interaction implicit and build smart environments. For example, a location-aware mobile phone may confirm that it is currently in a building.[2]
Description in logical terms uses a structured textual form. International standardisation offers a common method using ISO/TS 16952[3] as originated with German standards DIN EN 61346[4] and DIN EN 81346.[5]
Location in mathematical terms offers coordinates that refer to a nominated point of reference.
Location in network terms relates to locating network nodes. These include:
Variants[edit]
"Crisp" locating offers precise coordinates, using wireless signals or optical sighting, possibly with phase angle measurements. Coordinates are relative to either a standardized system of coordinates, e.g., WGS84, or a fixed object such as a building plan. Real-time locating adds timely delivery of results, especially for moving targets. Real time locating is defined with ISO/IEC 19762-5 and ISO/IEC 24730-1.[14] Fuzzy locating offers less precision, e.g., presence "near" a point of reference. Measuring wireless power levels can supply this degree of precision. Less sophisticated systems can use wireless distance measurements to estimate a point of reference in polar coordinates (distance and direction) from another site. Index locating indicates presence at a known location, as with fixed RFID reader's and RFID tags.[15]