Ekahau Upgrades Location Tracking Solution With New Ekahau RTLS Controller
By Ekahau Inc., PRNEWednesday, December 1, 2010
Ekahau RTLS Controller 5.0 Delivers Tighter Network Integration, Enhanced Wi-Fi Tag Management and Other New Functionalities
RESTON, Virginia, December 2, 2010 - Ekahau Inc.(R), the worldwide leader in high performance
Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) (
www.ekahau.com/products/real-time-location-system/overview.html),
today announced an upgrade to its flagship RTLS solution. The upgrade
includes the launch of Ekahau RTLS Controller (ERC), which introduces tighter
integration with wireless network infrastructure platforms from leading
network providers (
www.ekahau.com/partners/infrastructure-partners.html). Other
enhancements to ERC include support for improved Wi-Fi tag management
capabilities, additional sensor functionality and an expanded list of tracked
Wi-Fi devices, including tags from other RTLS vendors.
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Ekahau's Wi-Fi-based RTLS solution has emerged as the
market-leading platform for many industries including healthcare, mining and
manufacturing. Ekahau has claimed the top spot in full RTLS system
deployments winning four out of five head-to-head customer evaluations. This
has resulted in several large healthcare systems ordering enterprise-wide
RTLS solutions with thousands of Wi-Fi tags for assets, staff and patients.
Ekahau's performance, coupled with a full portfolio of Wi-Fi network analysis
tools, provides customers with solutions that are quickly implemented over
their existing enterprise-wide Wi-Fi networks.
"The upgrades to our location tracking solution are part of a
greater evolution. No longer is RTLS used just as a 'location engine' to
simply find assets," said Arttu Huhtiniemi, vice president of Product
Management at Ekahau. "Today's RTLS must be able to perform a wide variety of
supporting functionalities like text messaging, over-the-air tag management,
sensing, execution of business rules, and several other unique functions that
leverage the overall Ekahau architecture and extended functionality."
As Ekahau's fifth-generation location server, ERC builds on
and replaces the Ekahau Positioning Engine (EPE), which was launched as in
2002 as the world's first Wi-Fi-based location server. ERC incorporates EPE's
patented algorithms and innovations, and expands it by tightly integrating
with wireless network infrastructure, using non-associating tags and
providing the capability to track any Wi-Fi device on leading
controller-based networks such as Aerohive(TM), Aruba Networks(R), Cisco
Systems(R), Meru Networks(R) and Motorola(R).
Unlike competing solutions, ERC is also able to perform
two-way communication with Wi-Fi location tags over the Wi-Fi network. This
provides support for a wide variety of Ekahau "smart Wi-Fi tag" functions,
such as remote tag configuration and messaging, changing tag beacon rates,
and local alerting and sensing services. Other key capabilities of the ERC
platform include the ability to detect "micro zone" areas down to less than
three feet, by using infrared assisted tags with battery-powered Ekahau
Location Beacons (
www.ekahau.com/products/real-time-location-system/location-beacons.html).
This solution enables 100 percent room and sub-room level accuracy where
the Wi-Fi network design may not support precise positioning.
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Ekahau RTLS is a complete enterprise solution comprised of ERC
server software, Ekahau Vision application software, Ekahau Wi-Fi tags and
Ekahau Site Survey (ESS) software tools. As a software-based solution, ERC
also can be used in a cloud computing architecture. This option allows large
enterprises to centralize the servers running Ekahau RTLS software while
providing RTLS services to facilities across the state, country or even
across continents. As a result, enterprises do not need to deploy servers,
appliances or any other infrastructure at sites where RTLS services are in
use.
ERC is available now. Customers who subscribe to Ekahau's
support and maintenance program are eligible for a free upgrade.
About Ekahau Inc.
Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based
RTLS solutions. Ekahau's customers, including several Fortune 500 companies
worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi based location services and
innovative Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools. Ekahau's solutions
are being used in more than 300 hospitals around the world, as well as by
manufacturing, retail and industrial companies, government agencies and the
military. Ekahau partners include wireless software developers, leading
system integrators and international OEM partners, who develop and market
wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau is a U.S.-based corporation, with
headquarters in Reston, Va., and other offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Helsinki,
Finland; Tokyo; and Hong Kong. For more information about Ekahau, please
visit www.ekahau.com.
(c) Copyright 2010, Ekahau, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Media Contacts: Juliet Travis, Rocket Science PR, for Ekahau, +1-415-464-8110 x 215, juliet(at)rocketscience.com; Annina Pierson, Marketing Director, Ekahau, +358-40-737-4885, annina.pierson(at)ekahau.com
Tags: December 2, Ekahau Inc., Reston, virginia