Calibration
Overview
As our Asset Tracking relies on the signal strength between the fixed installation of Mesh Nodes and the roaming BlueRange Tracking Tags, it is necessary to calibrate the system for best performance. In its default uncalibrated state, the system is good enough to be used in some generic office buildings. Nevertheless, it is highly recommended to do the calibration as the asset tracking is strongly affected by presence or absence of walls and the type of materials used in the building. One will most likely not be getting the expected results in its default state and should opt for calibrating the system.
Prerequisites
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Before calibrating a site, make sure that the width and height of your floor plan is set correctly.
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You can do this in the Portal by selecting a floor and clicking on the edit button in the upper right corner of the screen.
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The width needs to specify the distance in meters that your floor plan represents. If your image has e.g. a white border or shows the surrounding area as well, you must account for that length and add it to the length of your floor.
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Be as exact as you can as this is important!
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The height will be deduced from the dimensions of your uploaded image. Make sure that it is correct and upload a new image that is not squashed in case the value is incorrect.
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Next, verify that "Default Mesh Node Height" and tracking tag height are configured.
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The default height of mesh nodes is important and should be given from the floor level, e.g. 3m above the floor.
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The default height of tracking tags is also important and if you e.g. plan to have them carried around, a value of e.g. 1m would be acceptable.
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If possible, upload a wall plan, as the tracking system uses the building structure to improve the localization accuracy.
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A wall plan must use white pixels for areas where a tracking tag can move and must have black pixels for other areas.
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You should not use outlines for your walls but should have all walls represented in opaque black.
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The wall plan must have the same pixel dimensions as the floor plan that you have uploaded.
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Make sure that the gateway, the mesh nodes and all tracking tags are enrolled in the BlueRange platform. (See Enrollment)
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Make sure, that all mesh nodes are positioned on the virtual floor plan.
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Again, be as exact as possible as incorrect placement will affect the asset tracking performance.
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The distance between the mesh nodes should not exceed 8 meters.
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If possible, make sure that the mesh nodes have the same height as the tracking tags. Height differences between the tracking tag and mesh nodes can potentially deteriorate the tracking accuracy.
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Make sure that all areas inside the trackable region are reachable by at least three mesh nodes.
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To diagnose misbehavior during calibration and also later during localization, the BlueRange team needs to have access to the logs of the gateway. For this, please make sure that the gateway is correctly configured to collect its logs. (See Collecting BlueRange Gateway Logs) for more details.
| For calibration only one tracking tag is required. However, placing multiple tracking tags in different locations simultaneously can save some time. |
Guidelines
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As a general rule of thumb, the more measurements are collected, the better. It is recommended to calibrate on at least 8 measurement points, as with a lower number, it is not guaranteed that the localization accuracy improves.
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Choose your measurement points in regions, where the asset is assumed to move most likely.
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Also try to calibrate in regions, where as many beacons as possible can be reached.
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As the signal is unlikely to be disturbed in close proximity to a beacon, prefer measurement points next to at least one beacon.
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At least one calibration run should be performed, where the asset is placed next to each beacon (< 1 meter of distance).
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In the remaining calibration runs, choose measurement points that are covered by as many beacons as possible.
Calibration
Calibration is currently only possible by using our BlueRange Admin App. See the calibration chapter for a step by step guide on how to calibrate your network for asset tracking.