New Wireless Technology Goes Where GPS Can't

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has developed a new wireless localisation system with the ability to track, sense and communicate in areas where GPS and other wireless technologies cannot work. Originally developed for use in horse and motor racing, the high-accuracy terrestrial localisation system is being commercialised to allow first-response emergency workers to be accurately tracked in dangerous environments such as in building collapses or underground mines where other tracking technologies will not work. The system uses nodes attached to workers that communicate with portable fixed nodes around the site, allowing the position of the worker to be tracked in areas where typical tracking signals wouldnt work. The nodes can be modified to also collect data from the worker, such as heart rate, core temperature, and whether there are any dangerous gases or radiation in the area. The system has government-funded backing and is set to be commercialised and deployed in Australia's emergency services within three years. Other applications for the technology include military, sport, counter-terrorism, motor and horse racing."

Comments

Communicate in remote areas ...

[capnchicken]

... by placing communication nodes in said remote areas?

How is this idea novel, isn't a tad bit obvious?

Re:Communicate in remote areas ...

[dgatwood]

No, a novel idea doesn't appear immediately obvious the first time you see it in action. If anyone with experience in the field sees it in action and immediately knows how they would do the same thing, it isn't very novel (or is very trivial, depending). When the first horseless carriage came out, people thought the inventor was nuts....

We've had devices for doing portable location of people for a long time. They're called cell phones. We've had data gathering sensors on people in dangerous environments for a while. We've used portable cell towers to cover areas damaged by floods and earthquakes or during search and rescue ops in the middle of nowhere. I see very little that's new in any of that except that it is being commercialized and tightly integrated instead of being done in an ad hoc fashion. What am I missing?

More concisely

[bill_mcgonigle]

wouldn't give a Letter of Assurance to the IEEE with regards to its 802.11n patents

Can also be read as, "CISRO is why 802.11n is stalled at draft stage and worldwide deployment is slow and uncertain." Let's all thank the Australian government for throwing a wet blanket on the industry.

'Wankers' is aussie, right?