company news about Asset and Personnel Tracking On- and Offshore

Extronics’ RTLS products offer asset and personnel tracking solutions for several applications. For instance, personnel can wear devices that will help provide tracking in locations such as offshore vessels or oil and gas platforms. The technology has recently been of interest to companies to gain Person On Board (POB) information on such ships or platforms. Extronics’ BLE anchors and tags are often used to capture the location of people and assets for safety purposes.

Other everyday use cases include laydown yard asset management, stock inventory management, assets in and out of a work site, bulk materials management, and other applications across harsh and hazardous areas.

Depending on their application, customers can have a mix of technologies to accomplish real-time management of their sites or for worker safety. In indoor areas, Extronics’ customers often use their existing Wi-Fi access points with the company’s iWAPs to pinpoint the tag location via trilateration. To further increase the location accuracy, companies can install iTAG XB40 BLE anchors, creating a solution that reduces infrastructure costs as it requires no cabling and operates via battery power.

Extronics’ Wirepas-based solution (running on BLE technology) leverages battery-powered anchors to form a mesh network that receives transmissions from tags and relays it via the mesh to Extronics‘ location engine (ELE).

With the Wirepas technology, the iTAG XB10 and iTAG XB20 tags are worn by users or mounted on assets. Each tag sends data to the ELE via the Wirepas mesh network and the iWAP XN3 X2000 gateway. The ELE then identifies and displays the tag’s position on the site map.

In addition to the RTLS solutions, which can be used with assets, Extronics offers intrinsically safe, passive UHF RFID tags and readers as part of its AutoID solutions. The products in the range include battery-free UHF RFID tags and handheld or fixed readers.

“Our customers have improved operational efficiency and reduced the time spent finding key assets” with the RTLS or UHF RFID-based solutions. Hartley says.

Extronics had been aware of Bartec since its beginning, says Hartley. “As a business, Extronics has spent a lot of time and effort developing a quality set of products and solutions designed to help the process industry extend their digitalization goals into the hazardous area.” He adds that joining Bartec “means both companies can now offer the most extensive portfolio of products to the market, helping our customers succeed in all their objectives.”