What an RTLS does, in one picture
Every radio in the demo follows the same five steps. Only the precision and the update rate change.
Try it in three steps
- Choose a radio. UWB, BLE 5.x, passive RFID, active RFID, GPS or LoRaWAN. Each one finds the tag in a different way.
- Choose a place. Warehouse, hospital, plant, construction site or yard. Each place has its own route and its own alerts.
- Watch the dot, the heatmap and the messages. Then drag Accuracy to the left and right, and press +50 assets to see a busy floor.
The controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Radio buttons | Switch the radio technology. The dot, the heatmap and the messages change to match how that radio sees the tag. |
| Place buttons | Switch the simulated site: a new floor plan, route and set of alerts. |
| Pause and Reset | Pause stops the simulation. Reset clears the heatmap and starts again. |
| +50 assets | Adds 50 more tagged assets so you can see a busy operation. Press it again to remove them. |
| Playback | How far the asset is through one loop of its route. |
| Speed | Runs the simulation at 1×, 2× or 4×. |
| Accuracy | Sets how many anchors the site has. More anchors give a more accurate position; slide it down to see the position get less certain. |
| Heatmap | Shows or hides the coloured zones that show where the asset spends its time. |
| Anchors | Shows or hides the fixed receivers that pick up the tag. |
The numbers on the right
- Elapsed
- Time since the simulation started.
- Distance
- How far the asset has travelled.
- Events
- How many location messages the system has sent.
- Top zone
- The zone where the asset has spent the most time.
- Fleet
- How many assets are tracked: 1, or 51 after +50 assets.
- Alerts
- Rules broken so far, such as speeding in a pick aisle or an asset leaving its zone.
- Event stream
- The messages a real system would send to your software. New messages appear at the bottom.
- Accuracy badge
- The position error the demo is showing for the radio and number of anchors you picked.
The six radios, side by side
The precision figures are the ones the demo uses. Real sites vary with the building, the layout and how the system is installed.
| Radio | Precision in the demo | How it sees the tag | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| UWB | 10-30 cm | Anchors work out its live position many times a second. | Precise indoor tracking: high-value assets, safety zones, hands-free workflows. |
| BLE 5.x | 1-3 m | Locators place it in the nearest room or zone. | Room or zone tracking on a budget, with long tag battery life. |
| Passive RFID | At portals | Readers log it only when it passes a door or chokepoint, so there is no track or heatmap. | Dock doors, doorways and conveyors. Cheap tags with no battery. |
| Active RFID | 1-3 m zone | Receivers report which zone it is in. | Zone-level visibility across large areas. |
| GPS / GNSS | 3-10 m | Satellites fix it outdoors. It does not work reliably indoors. | Vehicles, trailers and yard equipment. Try it on the yard. |
| LoRaWAN | Ping only | A gateway reports a rough position every few seconds. | Low-power, long-range presence across a site. |
The five places
- Warehouse
- A tagged forklift loops from receiving to the pick aisle, staging and shipping. Use case: forklift and pick-path optimisation.
- Hospital
- A tracked infusion pump moves between ED, ICU, OR and imaging. Use case: mobile equipment and patient flow.
- Plant
- A work-in-progress carrier flows through receiving, cells and QA to outbound. Use case: WIP traceability and cycle time.
- Construction
- A worker tag moves across the site office, storage and crane zones. Use case: site safety and mustering.
- Yard
- A yard truck moves trailers between the gates, the container yard and staging. Use case: trailer and gate visibility.
Robot fleets: AGVs and AMRs
The demo is an RTLS. It is not a robot fleet manager, and it helps to know the difference before you buy either.
What a fleet manager does
An AGV or AMR fleet manager gives the robots their jobs, plans their routes and manages traffic between them. It knows where its own robots are because the robots report their position to it. Many fleet managers can work with robots from other makers through the VDA 5050 interface.
What an RTLS adds
An RTLS locates everything that carries a tag: forklifts, carts, pallets, tools and people, not only the robots. That is how you see where robots and manual traffic meet, where work waits, and what a layout change would do. In the demo, the forklift route and +50 assets show this on a warehouse floor.
More on robot fleets: AGV or AMR, running mixed robot fleets and our AMR and AGV guidance.
What is simulated
Everything in the demo runs in your browser on simulated data. The routes, alerts and numbers show the kind of event stream a UWB or BLE 5.x system produces, not the results of a real site.
The AI section further down the demo page works the same way: example model outputs on simulated data.