OmniLocation Tracks People, Objects in Near Real Time
A CSC location awareness system is getting a high-speed test in the Amgen Tour of California, with a tracking device that can bring online viewers just a few meters from the lead cyclists.
CSC has developed a wireless global positioning system (GPS) object field tracking solution as part of a suite of location awareness technologies called OmniLocation, which will put fans virtually in the peloton. An online live tracker will track five lead riders in the General Classification, plus one rider from sponsors Team CSC and T-Mobile.
The CSC solution brings together the smallest GPS trackers, the fastest data transmission system and the most accurate software. CSC provides an application that includes a dynamic mapping application that keeps an entire group of objects in view as they move through the landscape.
The application is able to track multiple objects in close proximity, with changing perspectives and orientation to see the entire race field while still receiving ground-level information on the riders. OmniLocation is so accurate that fans following the race online will be able to know exactly where the tracked riders are within a three-meter margin.
"Our goal is to build upon the Amgen Tour of California fan experience year after year, and we are thrilled that CSC will be employing its innovative technology to help accomplish that," says Shawn Hunter, president of AEG Sports, presenters of the race. "Fans can get even more involved in the race by being able to pinpoint how the race leaders are doing from their desktops."
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Online cycling fans will be able to get a representational view of the CSC trackers and data with Google Maps at www.csc.com/cycling or an informational view of the same data with Adobe on the Tour of California Web site at www.amgentourofcalifornia.com. The stream will automatically refresh roughly every 10 seconds.
Each of the tracked riders will be shown on the tracker as an expandable icon, which will give viewers detailed information on the rider, team and speed. The lead car, peloton car and sweep cars will also be tracked, but not mapped, providing the boundaries that give the dynamic map its cue to move.
The level of accuracy on a terrain map from such a small battery-powered and wireless device able to transmit data streams has been available for less than one year. CSC is one of the very first users.
"We’re moving from a simple messaging type system that has been used to do GPS up until now into a streaming data system that takes the limit off of how often you can update location," says Daniel Munyan, chief technologist at CSC’s Global Security Solutions Identity Labs. "Beyond that, we’re expressing it in a dynamic format that has not been done before. The key here is to provide as much information as possible on the location of a group of objects in the smallest understandable footprint. Dynamic tracking can be accomplished without giving the entire computer screen over to an application.
"By doing this wireless, we’re placing the sensor in one place and the interpretation in another place," he adds. "This is important because it allows you to track many things instead of one thing and it allows you to track them remotely, instead of just at the users’ site."
The OmniLocation device will send near real-time tracking reports to Internet portals using the GPS and general packet radio service (GPRS) technologies.
The reach of the system will be enhanced by SIRFIII technology that can reach out to as many as 20 satellites simultaneously, providing more resistance to sky-based obstruction and giving coverage in forests, high walled canyons and even indoors – locations in which a standard GPS would go dead.
The accuracy of the system will also be twice that of standard GPS through the addition of WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System), which adds 29 WAAS reference stations, to correct satellite information for the irregularities in the surface of the earth relative to the satellites and the distortion of radio waves in the ionosphere.
Tagged riders and cars will carry extremely compact 80-gram GPS/GPRS trackers, which will communicate data through the T-Mobile GSM network.
Evolving the business of location
The Tour of California is also a way to demonstrate how this technology applies to various scenarios. CSC OmniLocation addresses business priorities, including productivity, security, efficiency and compliance for users in both industry and government. It does this by helping users track their people, vehicles or other assets in any environment in near real time.
OmniLocation is CSC’s latest solution in the growing field of location awareness, which also includes video and RFID. Location awareness isn’t just about GPS, or RFID, Munyan says – businesses need to figure out a way to bring them all together. The integrated technologies can feed a system that could provide real-time, exact location and vital bio-data for workers in remote or hazardous locations like mines and oil exploration sites or battlefields.
"The [Tour of California] race really shows that CSC can take the newest technology and turn it into a premiere application in very little time," Munyan says. "Unlike other big system integrators, we’re actually building the capability to not just manage subcontractors to build a solution, but to build the solution ourselves."
About the Tour of California
CSC is the official IT sponsor of the Tour of California, an eight-day cycling road race, scheduled for February 18-25, 2007, in which 18 of the world’s top professional teams will compete along a demanding 650-mile course from San Francisco to Long Beach.
