Commercialising sustainable, battery-free digital wayfinding beacons for indoor navigation

用于室内导航的可持续、无电池数字寻路信标的商业化

• 批准号: 10106010
• 金额: $ 6.37万
• 依托单位: LIGHTRICITY LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10106010
• 关键词: Commercialising; sustainable; battery; free; digital

Lightricity has developed prototype light-powered, BLE-based, beacons that can replace battery-powered beacons for navigation in digital wayfinding solutions. These solutions typically pair beacon devices located throughout buildings with a smart phone and mapping app to enable the user to navigate indoors around large buildings e.g. hospitals, museums, airports, shopping centres and office complexes. The main current constraint on wider adoption of these navigation solutions is that the beacons require a high beaconing rate (multiple times per second) to provide enough resolution of location data to moving people. This drives high demand on the batteries which typically last 6-12 months bringing high maintenance costs and significant environmental impact of battery waste and carbon impact of battery change activities. Our solution replaces the battery with an energy harvesting solution based on our patented indoor photovoltaic (PV) technology and power management architectures giving a maintenance-free and much more sustainable option.The light-powered beacons (4EverNav) are based upon adaptations to our already deployed light-powered asset-tracking tags (4EverTrack) which enable entirely battery-free operation. In a current 'Circular Economy for SMEs' project we have been focussed on exploring the feasibility of a range of approaches to further reduce the environmental impact of these products. Amongst these, some technical developments have enabled the spin-off benefit of enabling us to meet the requirements to deliver wayfinding beacon functionality with a very similar architecture.This project aims to overcome barriers to commercial adoption by carrying out a pilot with a wayfinding solution customer to validate performance. We will also address wider compatibility across different smart phone operating systems and ensure that the devices are designed compliant with the requirements for both CE and FCC certification in order to be accepted in the main global markets. Support with design for manufacture will ready us to progress to a commercial solution post-project.

Lightricity 开发了基于 BLE 的光供电信标原型，可以替代电池供电信标，用于数字寻路解决方案中的导航。这些解决方案通常将遍布建筑物的信标设备与智能手机和地图应用程序配对，使用户能够在大型建筑物（例如建筑物）周围进行室内导航。医院、博物馆、机场、购物中心和办公大楼。当前广泛采用这些导航解决方案的主要限制是信标需要高信标速率（每秒多次）才能为移动的人员提供足够分辨率的位置数据。这推动了对电池的高需求，电池通常可持续 6-12 个月，从而带来高昂的维护成本、电池废物对环境的重大影响以及电池更换活动的碳影响。我们的解决方案用基于我们专利的室内光伏 (PV) 技术和电源管理架构的能量收集解决方案取代了电池，提供了免维护且更具可持续性的选择。光供电信标 (4EverNav) 基于对我们已经获得的部署了光供电资产跟踪标签 (4EverTrack)，可实现完全无电池运行。在当前的“中小企业循环经济”项目中，我们一直致力于探索一系列方法的可行性，以进一步减少这些产品对环境的影响。其中，一些技术的发展带来了附带好处，使我们能够满足以非常相似的架构提供寻路信标功能的要求。该项目旨在通过与寻路解决方案客户进行试点来克服商业采用的障碍验证性能。我们还将解决不同智能手机操作系统之间更广泛的兼容性问题，并确保设备的设计符合 CE 和 FCC 认证的要求，以便被全球主要市场接受。制造设计支持将使我们做好准备，以便在项目后开发商业解决方案。