BlipNet_Beacon_Technical_Whitepaper

BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 1 of 19 BLIP Systems A/S BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper . BLIP Systems A/S, Aalborg, Denmark. http://www.blipsystems.com/Abstract This document is a technical white paper about BlipNet Beaco. The document contains a technical description of the product and a description of the various use cases the product can be applied for. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 2 of 19 BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 3 of 19 Table of contents 1 Preface......................................................................................................................................................................5 1.1 Purpose of this document ...................................................................................................................................5 2 Product Overview ....................................................................................................................................................6 2.1 Use cases ...........................................................................................................................................................6 2.2 Components of BlipNet Beacon..........................................................................................................................7 2.3 BlipServer ...........................................................................................................................................................8 2.4 BlipManager........................................................................................................................................................8 2.5 BlipServer Modules.............................................................................................................................................9 2.5.1 Web Module..................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.5.2 Web Module...............................................................................................................................................11 2.5.3 Positioning Module.....................................................................................................................................11 2.5.4 Beacon Module ..........................................................................................................................................12 2.6 BlipBeacon Tracker application .........................................................................................................................12 2.7 BlipBeacon........................................................................................................................................................13 2.8 BlipNet SDK......................................................................................................................................................14 2.8.1 BlipNet API.................................................................................................................................................14 2.8.2 BlipNet API examples ................................................................................................................................14 2.8.3 BlipNet API documentation package ..........................................................................................................15 2.8.4 Sample Applications ..................................................................................................................................16 3 Setup and maintenance ........................................................................................................................................17 4 Terminology and Abbreviations...........................................................................................................................18 5 Related information...............................................................................................................................................19 5.1 Documents........................................................................................................................................................19 5.2 Links..................................................................................................................................................................19 5.3 Trademarks and acknowledgements................................................................................................................19 BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 4 of 19 First edition (Jan 2005) This document is published by BLIP Systems A/S, without any warranty. BLIP Systems A/S, may make improvements and changes to this text necessitated by typographical errors, inaccuracies of current information or improvements to programs and/or equipment, at any time without notice. Such changes will, however, be incorporated into new editions of this document. Any hard copies of this document are to be regarded as temporary reference copies only. All rights reserved. © BLIP Systems A/S, 2005 BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 5 of 19 1 Preface 1.1 Purpose of this document The BlipNet Beacon Technical Whitepaper is intended to give the reader a deeper understanding of the technical side of BlipNet Beacon People who can benefit from this document include:  System architects  IT professionals  Software developers  Support engineers Information about BlipNet Beacon may also be found at the site http://www.blipsystems.com BlipNet Beacon is based on BlipNet. For further details about the BlipServer please see [BlipNet Technical White paper] See chapter 4 for Terminology and Abbreviations. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 6 of 19 2 Product Overview BlipNet Beacon is a new concept for Real Time Location Systems (RTLS). Unlike other RTLS systems, BlipNet Beacon is based on tagging the location and not on tracking the mobile device itself. A BlipNet Beacon network is a RTLS network for tracking Bluetooth enabled phones. The system is very easy to deploy since no broadband connection are required. Only power is required at the site. The system can be applied to locate mobile phones. The phone must be able to run the “BlipBeacon Tracker” application. The system can be applied for any kind of location based service. BlipNet Beacon works this way: 1. A BlipBeacon is mounted at all the locations where tracking is required. 2. A BlipBeaconTracker application is installed on the mobile device 3. The BlipBeaconTracker application reports detected BlipBeacons to the BlipServer. 4. The BlipServer informs 3rd party applications. The BlipNet Beacon based solution has these benefits compared to other RTLS solutions:  Cheap hardware  No internet connection required  Deployment is simple  It works indoor. The BlipNet Beacon solution requires however specific capabilities of the mobile phone, such as Java (MIDP) and support for JSR82 (Java interface for Bluetooth). These capabilities are currently supported by 18 phones on the market. 2.1 Use cases BlipNet Beacon is perfect suited for e.g. the following applications.  Workforce management Track where employees are within a campus, this can be useful e.g. for building facility management. Assign the task to the closest person.  Time registration Track the time spent by a nurses visiting elderly people at home. If combined with another application on the phone, provide the specific details of the person, without the need to search through data.  Presence registration. Automatically monitor if staff have been present at specific places at specific times. This can be applied for guards, cleaning personnel and much more. Please notice: BlipNet also can be applied for RTLS solutions especially for sites like offices, enterprises and other larger sites. BlipNet has the advantage that it’s capable of tracking any Bluetooth device, it doesn’t require a GPRS subscription, and it can be applied to access other services like the local LAN. However BlipNet Beacon is a perfect RTLS solution when it’s required to locate a closed user group at many small non-co-located sites without a broadband connection. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 7 of 19 2.2 Components of BlipNet Beacon The components a BlipNet Beacon solution are shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 The BlipNet Beacon components. The components in the BlipNet Beacon are:  BlipBeacon This is basically a Bluetooth radio and a power supply. There is no Ethernet interface. The BlipBeacon has unique ID. The ID is visble for the other devices searching for the Beacon.  BlipBeaconTracker Application This application (currently available for Java based phones) applies the Bluetooth radio of the phone for searching for Bluetooth beacons. Results from the searches are forwarded to the BlipServer.  BlipServer The BlipServer is a Java application running on a server. The BlipServer collects the inputs from the BlipBeacon applications. The BlipServer has an open API which can be applied by 3rd party applications.  BlipManager The graphical GUI of the BlipServer. BlipManager BlipServer Mobile Network BlipBeacon BlipBeacon BlipBeacon BlipBeacon Beacon Tracker Beacon Tracker BlipNet API Client BlipNet Application BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 8 of 19 2.3 BlipServer The BlipServer is the core component in the BlipNet. Via the BlipServer, it is possible to configure and monitor the entire BlipNet Beacon. The BlipServer is available for both Linux and Windows. The BlipBeacon Tracker applications running on the mobile devices connect periodically to the server. The BlipServer configures and controls the BlipBeacon Tracker application on the mobile devices. The BlipServer receives detection information from the BlipBeacon Tracker applications. The BlipServer has a feature rich API. The API can be applied to subscribe on location information. The BlipManager, which is the graphical user interface for configuration and management of BlipNet, connects to the BlipServer. (Please refer to section 2.4.) 2.4 BlipManager The BlipManager allows users to configure and monitor the entire BlipNet. The BlipManager is the graphical user interface for BlipNet, and is available for Windows 2000/XP and Linux. The BlipManager connects to the BlipServer via TCP/IP. Figure 2 The BlipManager TheBlipNet Beacon system can be administered from the BlipNet management tool called BlipManager. The BlipManager can be used to administrate:  Users  Beacons  BlipBeacon Tracker Application BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 9 of 19 The BlipManager is implemented as a thin client. It does not have any local storage. All configuration changes are made directly to the BlipServer. The BlipManager is supported on both Windows platform and Linux platforms. It is not necessary to run the BlipManager and the BlipServer on the same machine. The BlipManager is a well documented and comes with online help and an extensive Users Guide. 2.5 BlipServer Modules The BlipNet Beacon solution requires the following modules in the BlipServer:  Positioning Module  Web Module  Beacon Module BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 10 of 19 Figure 3 Architecture of BlipNet Beacon. The Beacon tracker is an application running on the mobile phone and connects to the Beacon Module on the BlipServer. Mobile Network BlipBeacon BlipBeacon BlipBeacon BlipBeacon Blip Beacon Tracker Blip Beacon Tracker SQL DB RMI TCP/IP BlipNet API Remote Interface BlipNet API Client BlipServer Kernel Position Beacon HTTP BlipServer VM VM BlipNet Application WEB/WAP Brow ser HTTP Java VM HTTP MIDLET BlipNet Application BlipNet Application Web Service Client WEB/WAP Browser User Module BlipNet Web API Blip Web Services HTTP HTTP User Module Blip Web Pages BlipNet Basic 3rd Party App Optional Module WEB Module BlipNet API BlipServer Core BlipNet API Module BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 11 of 19 2.5.1 Web Module The Web Module extends the BlipServer with an embedded Java web container and allows you to configure and monitor your BlipNet installation from a Web Browser. The Web Module allows you to write web pages or web applications that takes full advantage of BlipNet. By using the latest web technologies the Web Module gives you access to the functionality of the BlipNet API from Java Server Pages (JSP), Servlets, Java Server Faces (JSF) or Web Services (WS) allowing you to write BlipNet server side web applications. This opens for a number of new applications:  Localized content: Use BlipNet Beacon to keep track of mobile phone /PDA /Laptop users to display personalized and location based content when they access your web/wap pages through Bluetooth or GPRS.  Tracking: Create pages that show the location of Bluetooth devices on a map in web browsers or use web services to deliver the information to existing web services or applications.  Web based configuration of BlipNet Beacon, BlipNet Modules and 3rd Party applications. The Web module has some sub components see Figure 3.  BlipNet Web Pages Contains Web Pages for Configuration of BlipNet and BlipNet modules. Allow you to Monitor your BlipNet installation and read the BlipNet Documentation online. The BlipNet Developers Edition also contains the BlipNet SDK Documentation, and BlipNet based Web Sample Applications.  BlipNet Web Services: WebService is a XML based communication standard that allow software to interoperate across programming languages, platforms and operating systems. The BlipNet WebServices is a premade set of WebServices to configure and control BlipNet. This allows other WebService enabled services like existing Web Solutions, Microsoft .NET Applications and WebService enabled Mobile Phones and PDAs to use the services offered by BlipNet.  BlipNet Web API The BlipNet Web API gives you acces to the standard Blipnet API from a Web Based Application running in the BlipNet Web Container. This allows you to write your own BlipNet based Web based applications. The BlipNet Web API also comes with custom tag libraries for common BlipNet Actions that makes the writing of BlipNet enabled Server side Web pages very easy. The Web module is mandatory for the following modules: Positioning module, Beacon module, Push module. For more information please see [BlipNet Web Module] 2.5.2 Positioning Module The Positioning Module is targeted for system integrators of RTLS solutions and for developers of LBS services. The Positioning module can be applied as a standalone tracking system for locating all sorts of things: children, asset tracking, trucks, containers, animals, personnel, anything! The module can also be combined with other BlipServer features to provide a Location Based Service (LBS). Examples of such services are: museums solutions, fair solutions, dating solutions, etc. The Blip Positioning Module is an extra module to the Blip Server. The module is configured via an easy to use graphical user interface. The module has these interfaces:  A JAVA API, which enables easy integration between the Blip Positioning module and other applications. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 12 of 19  HTTP and XML based API, which enables instant position information as well as historical information.  WEB Server, with live graphical presentation of positions. 2.5.3 Beacon Module The Beacon Module is required for the BlipNet Beacon solutio¨n. The Beacon module handles communication with the BlipBeacon Tracker Applications on the mobile phones. The Beacon Module can configure the BlipBeaconTracker applications with a number of settings, see 2.6. 2.6 BlipBeacon Tracker application The BlipBeacon Tracker is an application running on a mobile phone. The BlipBeacon Tracker application can be downloaded directly into the Mobile phone from the web server in the BlipServer. The BlipBeacon Tracker application starts periodical searches on the Bluetooth radio in the phone. Every time a BlipBeacon module is detected it’s reported to the BlipServer via the mobile network. Figure 4 Architecture of Mobile phone with the BeaconTracker application. The LBS application is optional. Figure 4 shows the architecture of a mobile phone with the BlipBeacon Tracker application running. A “LBS application” is also showed on the figure, this is just to illustrate that the BlipBecon Tracker can run in parallel with other applications. The BlipBecon Tracker can run on any mobile phone supporting Java MIDP2.0 and the Bluetooth Java API JSR82. This is supported by a range of mobile devices on the market. A list of these devices can be seen at: http://www.javabluetooth.com/jsr82devices.html The BeaconTracker application can be configured from the BlipServer: LBS Mobile Phone Celluar Radio JVM OS LBS application BlipBeacon Mobile Network Blip-Beacon-Tracker Application Native Browser BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 13 of 19  Keep a-live interval Interval between the periodical attaches made from the BeaconTracker to BlipServer. The BlipServer may re-configure the BeaconTracker upon each attach.  Start search time When to start the search on the BlipBeacons. Could e.g. be at 08.00 o clock., or just on all the time.  Stop search time When to start the search on the BlipBeacons. Could e.g. be at 16.00 o clock.  Search interval Interval between searches, Could e.g. be 10 seconds.  Max cache time Maximum time to store results before reporting to BlipServer.  Local management Enable/disable local management.  Primary and secondary BlipServer A set of FQDN or IP addresses specifying the location of the BlipServer. Its only required to configure these settings if the BlipServer changes FQDN or IP address. The BlipBeacon Tracker application can also be configured locally if its enabled from the central management.  Start search time  Stop search time The BlipBeacon Tracker is distributed from the BlipServer and it will automatically connect to the BlipServer it was distributed from. 2.7 BlipBeacon The BlipBeacon is a low cost Bluetooth beacon with limited functionality. The BlipBeacon has no Ethernet interface. The BlipBeacon can only be used to tag a location. The BlipBeacon is in inquiry scan mode and it replies on inquiries performed by the BlipBeacon Tracker application. The BlipBeacon is optimized to facilitate power efficient inquiries from the BlipBeacon Tracker application. Figure 5 shows a picture of BlipBeacon. Figure 5 The BlipBeacon. The range of the BlipBeacon is adjustable via an external pot meter. This implies it’s possible to adjust if the BlipBeacon is detectable on 1 meter range or on e.g. 10 meter range. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 14 of 19 The maximum detection distance between the BlipBeacon and a mobile phone is typical 10 meter (The BlipBeacon is a class 2 device and mobile phones are also typically class 2 devices.) 2.8 BlipNet SDK BlipNet Beacon can be applied as it is for a wide range of use cases where location a mobile device is required. The position information collected via BlipNet Beacon is accessible for 3rd party applications from the BlipNet API. BlipNet Beacon application can access a subset of the full BlipNet API functionality. The BlipNet SDK consists of these elements:  Access to the BlipNet API  BlipNet API documentation package  Sample applications  BlipNet Client Tool (not applicable with BlipNet Beacon) The elements are all further described in [BlipNet Technical White paper]. 2.8.1 BlipNet API The BlipServer has a unique, open Java API. Via this API, third party application developers can interface with BlipNet and make custom applications. The API is based on a Java Technology called RMI (Remote Method Invocation). RMI is based on TCP/IP, which means that applications utilizing the BlipServer can be distributed throughout an IP network. Part of BlipNet is a set of Java classes, which can be applied to connect to the BlipServer. These classes can be used in an application to create a connection to the BlipServer. The subset of functionality available for BlipNet Beacon applications are:  Applications can subscribe to events from the BlipServer. Examples of events could be "terminal in range" or a specific BlipBeacon, etc.  Start and stop searches performed by BlipBeacon Traker applications.  Configuration of the BlipBeacon Tracker applications. The BlipNet API are described in further details in [BlipNet Technical White paper]. Section 2.8.2 contains an example of how the BlipNet API can be applied. 2.8.2 BlipNet API examples Figure 6 shows an example of how the BlipNet API can be applied in BlipNet Beacon. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 15 of 19 Figure 6 Example of usage of the BlipNet API. The interaction between a BlipServer application, BlipNet Beacon and a terminal entering range. 2.8.3 BlipNet API documentation package With the BlipNet documentation, it is simple to get started with BlipNet.  Application Developer’s Tutorial The tutorial describes how applications can be built on top of the BlipNet API complete with sample code.  BlipNet API JavaDoc The BlipNet API comes with complete documentation in JavaDoc format for easy integration with Java Development Environments.  BlipManager Online Help The BlipManager Online Help gives a complete documentation to the BlipManager and how to use it to configure the BlipNet system.  BlipManager Administrator’s Guide A ready to print document version of the BlipManager Online Help. 4 3 4 The BlipSever is configured to operate with BeaconTracker Applications. The BlipBeacon Tracker applications are configured. The application subscribes to location information from the Positioning module. The terminal enters the range of the BlipBeacon. The BlipBeacon Tracker application on the mobile phone is running and detects the terminal and informs the BlipServer via the Mobile Network. The BlipServer informs the application The application invokes establishment of a link and pushes an object. 6 5 4 3 1 2 Mobile Network Blip-Beacon Blip Beacon Tracker 1 4 BlipServer BlipNet API Client BlipNet Application 2 5 BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 16 of 19  Installation Guide The Installation Guide describes how to install BlipNet. 2.8.4 Sample Applications The BlipNet SDK contains a long range of sample applications. The relevant application for BlipNet Beacon is:  Beacon application A small sample application which configures and receives signals from a BlipBeacon Tracker application. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 17 of 19 3 Setup and maintenance The BlipNet Beacon is easy to set up and install, and it has built-in maintenance procedures.  Deployment of BlipBeacons. Its easy to “tag” a location with a BlipBeacon. Write down the location and the ID on the tag and plug it on. No broadband connection is required. The BlipBeacon has a bar code with a unique ID.  Plug and play A BlipBeacon Tracker application downloaded from a specific BlipServer will automatically connect to same BlipServer.  Installation The Installation procedure is performed via an installation wizard. The wizard is easy to use, and no specific BlipNet Beacon training is required to install the system.  Alarm generation BlipNet generates alarms for fault conditions in the system.  Auto update The BlipServer will constantly be developed, and new features and profiles will be added to the system in the future. BlipNet has an automatic software upgrading facility. The BlipServer SW can easily be upgraded from the Installation wizard. BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 18 of 19 4 Terminology and Abbreviations API Application Programming Interface BlipNet Bluetooth Local Infotainment Point Network IP Internet Protocol ISP Internet Service Provider JVM Java Virtual Machine PDA Personal Digital Assistant RF Radio Frequency RMI Remote Method Invocation SDK Software Development Kit SIG Bluetooth Special Interest Group TCP Transport Control Protocol UDP User Datagram Protocol URL Universal Resource Locator BlipNet Beacon Technical White Paper Page 19 of 19 5 Related information 5.1 Documents [Application Developers Tutorial] BlipNet 3.0, Application Developers’ Tutorial BLIP Systems A/S 2004 [BlipNet Positioning Module] BlipNet Positioning Module BLIP Systems A/S 2005 www.blipsystems.com [BlipNet Web Module] BlipNet Web Module BLIP Systems A/S 2005 www.blipsystems.com [BlipBeacon Data sheet] BlipBeacon Data Sheet BLIP Systems A/S 2005 5.2 Links http://www.blipsystems.com http://www.bluetooth.com – SIG official members site http://www.bluetooth.org 5.3 Trademarks and acknowledgements The Bluetooth trademarks are owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc., U.S.A. and used by Ericsson under license. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.