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Global Partners
Exclusive Representative Contract
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| TRX Systems delivers indoor location software and solutions. TRX is the first company to use sensor fusion and dynamic mapping of structural, magnetic, and RF features to pinpoint location indoors. |
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| The TRX Story : Safeguarding Firefighters and Locating Mobile Devices |
TRX Systemswas started to help safeguard firefighters. They operate indoors, in extremely dangerous conditions, with zero visibility, in buildings they don't control. If they go down, the rescue team often has only minutes to find them. Firefighters need a solution that delivers accurate indoor location - in 3D.
The traditional approaches to location - networked beacons & infrastructure - just did not work. What was needed was a wearable device with sensors that could locate the firefighters as they moved about. Firefighters have to be nimble, so the sensors had to be small. The budgets are limited so the sensors have to be low cost. Small low cost sensors are just not that accurate. Plus, firefighters perform complex movements during firefighting and search operations. Voice always has the priority on their radios, so any data transmission has to be extremely efficient. Working with firefighters taught TRX a lot about what it means to model human motion.
Supported by the NSF, DARPA, US Army and DHS, TRX developed a solution for delivering indoor location using sensor fusion and mapping. By fusing sensor information, it is possible to model human motion and deliver an estimate of the path a person takes through a building. Those path estimates are prone to errors given the small, low cost sensors being used, the interference building structures cause to magnetic sensors like compasses, and the errors driven by complex motion. In addition to path data, TRX derives mapping data from the sensors - i.e., you can detect and map key building features and signatures as people move about. These maps can be used to improve the location estimate derived from data coming from a fusion of these very low cost sensors.
It turns out indoor location was of interest for a broad array of public safety and defense applications. TRX now delivers the NEON solution for tactical training (SWAT, military, fire), VIP and event security, CBRNE response team tracking, crime scene forensics recording - and even commercial cellular signal mapping. |
| Sensors Get Embedded in Mobile Phones, Radios, Industrial Devices |
In the meantime, sensors have become smaller, lower cost, and have begun to be integrated within standard mobile phones and an array of other mobile devices. These sensors provide an always available, low power source of navigation data. However, mobile device sensors are small, low cost, and are subject to different motions as we talk, run, put them in our purse. Time, building infrastructure, and user motions can introduce errors in user path and location estimates. The challenges associated with using these path estimates to support delivery of accurate location in many ways mirror the challenges TRX first experienced with public safety applications.
TRX is applying the same mapping approach used to improve the location of public safety personnel to pinpoint the location of mobile devices indoors. The benefits of using sensors for mobile location include the fact that they are always available and low power, unlike GPS and Wi-Fi. However, sensors are not always accurate, so it is important to detect when they are useful for location and to be able to generate and flexibly apply constraints. To improve sensor-based estimates, TRX is generating its "location assistance data" - i.e., indoor maps - via crowdsourced contributions.
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| Completing the Loop - Consumer Devices and Tech in Every Market |
| TRX's work with public safety has enabled us to develop technology to pinpoint the location of devices indoors. The increasing use of sensors within mobile devices is allowing TRX to deliver its technology on a broad array of devices, and to enhance the performance of mobile location-based apps. Our hope is that this will make us all safer, more connected, and make indoor spaces - where we spend 90% of our time - easier to navigate.
The increasing use of sensors in high volume mobile devices is also making it possible for us to deliver lower cost and higher performance solutions for the personnel safeguarding our world. As the sensors typically used in mission critical devices are now cropping up in phones, fitness devices, and watches, costs are coming down. And the high speed data technology used by consumers is now showing up in public safety and military radios, delivering the bandwidth needed to provide indoor location at scale for law enforcement, firefighters, soldiers, and others. Soldiers are even hitting the field with Samsung Galaxy devices. That's game changing!
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| Safety, productivity, fun. Through indoor location. That's our mission at TRX. |
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