TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

Assignment 2: RTLS
Total Plant Automation
1 Introduction

In order to automatically detect and track targeted people or objects within a building or some
defined area in real time, a real-time location system (RTLS) can be utilised. Fixed reference
points receive wireless signals from active RTLS tags attached to people or objects to determine
their position. An RTLS differentiates itself from a GSP in terms of local positioning due to its
better accuracy and has therefore other applications such as asset management and patient tracking, predominately in manufactories, warehouses and healthcare.
First of all, as described in Chapter 2, an RTLS was configured for a defined area in the lab to
track three objects - an operator, a tool, and a car. Next, spatial relationships were analysed. To
dispose the interference of the various metal objects in the defined area, different filters were
designated to the tags. Those filters were then examined by tracking a fixed trajectory. These
analyses are discussed in Chapter 3 whereas conclusions are articulated in Chapter 4.
2 Setup

A Ubisense RTLS was used comprising four antennas and three active tags, seen in Figure 1.
Moreover, three software applications of Ubisense are utilised to configure the system: (i) Site
Manager; (ii) Map View; (iii) and Location Engine Configuration. The first section will describe
the Site Manager, section two will further handle the Map View. Section three will go over the
Location Engine Configuration.

(a) antenna

(b) active tag

Figure 1 - Ubisense RTLS system components

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

2.1 Site Manager

Various characteristics, such as types, objects, representations, areas, cells, object locations, and
geometry, must be determined in the Site Manager. Types refer to categorical traits, objects represent the items - persons, machines, equipment, goods - accompanied with tags one wants to
track, and representations can be assigned to the objects for visualisation purposes, as seen on
Figure 2. The area in which one wants to track the items must be defined in the Areas tab - Figure 3. The locations of the antennas are set in the Cells tab - Figure 5. Figure 4 depicts the object
locations.
In order to examine whether objects are in close proximity or enter an alarm zone, spatial relationships can be assigned between multiple objects and between objects and areas in the Geometry tab - Figure 6. Here, roles are utilised which represent what part the object takes in the relationship, such as object or zone. Each role is assigned with an area, i.e. shape, referring to what
extent the object takes part in the relation - Figure 7. For example, a person has a small area
whereas an alarm zone can be large. Dependent on the type of role, the area is absolute or relative. Specifically, a persons area is relative whereas an alarm zone has an absolute area. There are
two methods to designate the relation to the roles. A role can either contain another role via a
contains relation, or can be contained by another role object via a contained by relation. For
example, in case a person is not allowed to enter a particular area (alarm zone), the alarm zone
has a contains relationship with the person whereas the person has a contained by relation with
the alarm zone. The objective of this experiment was to determine when an assembly operator
was adding value to the product. It was assumed that the operator only adds value when he
stands at a product (i.e. car) with a tool (i.e. screwing device). Therefore, in the configuration of
this experiment, the tool had a contained by relation with the operator while the operator had a
contains relation with the tool. On the other hand, the operator had a contained by relation
with the car while the car had a contains relation with the operator.
2.2 Map View

The visualisation is rendered in Map View. Both the objects and the shapes of the roles are depicted. The shapes of the roles colour green when the spatial relationship holds, see Figure 8,
indicating a valid spatial relationship. In case of an invalid spatial relationship, the shapes colour
red. Note that the shape of the containing object must be completely inside the shape of contained by object for the spatial relationship to be true.

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

(a) Types tab

(c) Representations tab

[1]

(b) Objects tab

Figure 2 - Types and Objects tab in Site Manager

Figure 3 - Areas tab in Site Manager

Figure 4 - Object locations

Figure 5 - Cells tab in Site Manager

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

Figure 6 - Roles configuration in the Geometry tab of Site Manager

Figure 7 - Shape configuration

Figure 8 - Spatial Relationships view in Map View

2.3 Location Engine Configuration

Tags must be assigned to objects in the Location Engine Configuration. First tags are added. In
the software application, this is conducted via ownerships, i.e. tags own an object. This is illustrated in Figure 9. The three objects that were considered in this experiment were (i) a person
entitled Minion; (ii) a vehicle entitled Lamborghini; and (iii) a tool entitled screwing device.
Table 1 depicts the ownerships.

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

Figure 9 - Ownership tab in Location Engine Configuration

Table 1 - Ownerships of the tags

Tag

Owner

020-000-118-230

screwing device

020-000-118-224

Lamborghini

020-000-118-228

Minion

The Sensor and Cells tab illustrates the positions of the tags in the area, see Figure 10. Here, the
trail can be tracked as well, see Figure 11.

Figure 10 - Real-time positioning of the tags in the Sensor and Cells tab

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

Figure 11 - Example tracked trail of a tag in real-time

In the area, a lot of metal objects were present and interfere with the localisation system. Therefore, filters have been applied, see Figure 12, to examine the accuracy of the system by tracking
the trajectory of a straight line with and without the use of filters. For this experiment, the trajectory was first tracked using no filter. Then, the four predefined filters as displayed in Figure 12
were applied. Thereafter, the parameters of the resulting preeminent filter were compared with
the parameters of the inferior filters. By altering a few parameters of the preeminent filter and
visually inspecting the tracked trail in the Sensor and Cells tab, a best practices filter was defined.
The tag entitled with Minion was put into a railway car to travel in a straight line and on a flat
surface, so as to control the variations in both the x- and z-direction. The trajectory was tracked
explicitly by the Location Engine Configuration application and implicitly by an additional software tool CoordinatenLoggen.exe. The latter provides the coordinates of the trail which will be
used to establish a linear regression model per filter. Then, the coefficient of determination, Rsquared, will be utilised to define the accuracy of the filter as it represents the proportion of variability in the observed response variable that is explained by the linear regression model. Important to note, here, is that in the data sets of information filtering and best practices filter
several lines of data representing either impracticable or erroneous coordinates at the beginning
of the tests, were deleted but are still perceptible on the tracked trajectories.
3 Analysis

This chapter outlines and discusses the results. The first section presents the visualisation of the
spatial relationships between roles. Section 2 examines the different effects of the filters on a
tracked trajectory.

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

Figure 12 - Available filters in the Location Engine Configuration

3.1 Spatial relationships

Figure 13 and Figure 14 respectively depict the situation where the operator is inside and outside
the range of the car. The shades of both the operator and the car did not colour red, representing
an invalid spatial relationship. It appeared that the vertical height difference was not violated in
this activity, by which the system did not perceive the relation as invalid.

Figure 13 - Operation inside the range of car

Figure 14 - Operator outside the range of car

3.2 Accuracy and Filters

In this section, the trail and the linear regression model is presented per filter. Table 2 gives an
overview of the effects of the various filters in terms of the linear model and the corresponding
R-square coefficient. Following filters present a vertical near-linear path: (i) fixed height infor-

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

mation filtering; (ii) information filtering; (iii) static information; and (iv) a best practices 1 combination of the filters.
Remarkably, here, is that the linear regression model computed for the situation where fixed
height information filtering was conducted, indicates a large variance whereas the observed trajectory shows a primarily linear line. The plot of the tracked x- and y-coordinates and the small
R-squared coefficient fosters this large variance.. A reasonable cause for this bias is probably a
malfunction of the additional software tool. In contrast, the tracked trajectories where information filtering and where the best practices filter were utilised, provide preeminent results.
Their linear models and their corresponding R-squared coefficient profoundly comply with their
tracked trajectories. Furthermore, in spite of the three outer data points, the trajectory of the case
where static information filtering was applied is fairly straight. Those outlying data points justify
the lower R-squared coefficient. Once more, a probable malfunction of the additional software
tool can be assigned as a reasonable cause. Despite the moderately smooth trajectory of the case
when no filter was used, the corresponding linear model has a slope and unexplainable variance
comparable to the four aforementioned near-linear models - apart from the R-squared coefficient
of the linear model associated with the fixed height information filter. Finally, in case of static
fixed height information filtering, the trajectory shows a rather curved line in the upper half of
the trajectory. The latter is also visible on the plot of the x- and y-coordinates, and resulted in a
slope almost twice as large as any other regression coefficient. The proportion of total variation
of outcomes explained by the model, however, relates to the R-squared coefficients of the other
near-linear models - also apart from the R-squared coefficient of the linear model associated with
the fixed height information filter.

Table 2 - Overview linear regression models of the trajectories using various filters
Filter

Linear model

Reference

No filtering

x = 0.0253y - 942.62

0.520

Figure 15

Fixed height information filtering

x = 0.0205y - 954.52

0.146

Figure 16

Information filtering

x = 0.0164y - 942.44

0.549

Figure 17

Static fixed height information filtering

x = 0.0488y - 961.11

0.460

Figure 18

Static information filtering

x = 0.0210y - 945.71

0.386

Figure 19

Best practices combination

x = 0.0271y - 950.66

0.659

Figure 20

Of the preeminent fixed height information filtering, the vertical positioning std dev was set to zero, and the tag
height above cell floor was set to 0.7.
1

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

-900

x coordinate

-925

-950

x = 0.0253y - 942.62
R = 0.5196

-975

-1,000
300

500

700

900

y coordinate

(a)

(b)

Figure 15 - Tracked trail (a) and linear model of tracked coordinates(b) using no filter

-900

x coordinate

-925

-950

x = 0.0205y - 954.52
R = 0.1459

-975

-1,000
300

500

700
y coordinate

(a)

(b)

Figure 16 - Tracked trail (a) and linear model of tracked coordinates(b) using fixed height information filtering

900

TPA - Assignment 2

10

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

-900

x coordinate

-925

-950

-975

x = 0.0164y - 942.44
R = 0.5493

-1,000
300

500

700

900

y coordinate

(a)

(b)

Figure 17 - Tracked trail (a) and linear model of tracked coordinates(b) using information filtering

-900

x coordinate

-925

-950

x = 0.0448y - 961.11
R = 0.46

-975

-1,000
300

500

700

900

y coordinate

(a)

(b)

Figure 18 - Tracked trail (a) and linear model of tracked coordinates(b) using static fixed height information filtering

TPA - Assignment 2

11

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

-900

x coordinate

-925

-950

-975

x = 0.021y - 945.71
R = 0.3855

-1,000
300

500

700

900

y coordinate

(a)

(b)

Figure 19 - Tracked trail (a) and linear model of tracked coordinates(b) using static information filtering

-900

x coordinate

-925

-950

-975

x = 0.0271y - 950.66
R = 0.659

-1,000

300

500

700

900

y coordinate

(a)

(b)

Figure 20 - Tracked trail (a) and linear model of tracked coordinates(b) using a combination of best practises filter

4 Conclusions

An RTLS was first configured for a defined area in the lab to get acquainted with the basic operations. Three objects - an operator, a tool, and a car - were tracked and their spatial relationships
were analysed. Due to insufficient vertical height difference, the shades of the objects did not
depict an invalid spatial relationship. Next, different filters were administered to the tags to dis-

TPA - Assignment 2

Korneel Melkebeke, Pieter-Jan Steenbeke

12

card the interference of the various metal objects in the defined area. Finally, the filters were examined by tracking a fixed trajectory by means of linear regression models and corresponding
coefficients of determination. It was discovered that using filters showed a predominately linear
path, despite some ambiguous results such as a high unexplainable variance in the response variable or a high slope of the linear model. Still, when no filter was used, a fairly preeminent linear
regression model with a rather small unexplainable variance was attained. Therefore, it can be
stipulated that filters enhance the performance of the system when used properly.

References

[1]

How to create a representation using Site Manager, Ubisense, [Online]. Available:

https://download.ubisense.net/howto/SiteManagerRep_article/SiteManagerRep.html.
[Accessed 22 March 2015].