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

Lightricity已经开发出基于BLE的光供电信标原型，可以在数字寻路解决方案中取代电池供电的信标用于导航。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(如医院、博物馆、机场、购物中心和办公大楼)的室内导航。目前限制更广泛采用这些导航解决方案的主要因素是，信标需要很高的信标速率(每秒多次)才能为移动中的人提供足够的位置数据分辨率。这推动了对电池的高需求，通常持续6-12个月，带来了高昂的维护成本，以及电池浪费和电池更换活动对碳的重大环境影响。我们的解决方案以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，提供了免维护和更可持续的选项。光源式信标(4EverNav)基于对我们已经部署的光源式资产跟踪标签(4EverTrack)的适配，可以完全实现无电池操作。在目前的“中小企业循环经济”项目中，我们一直专注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，一些技术发展使我们能够利用非常相似的架构满足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验证性能，从而克服商业采用的障碍。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。为制造而设计的支持将使我们准备好进入项目后的商业解决方案。

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.