IBM deal lift-off for Ubisense in Korea

A major deal with IBM in Korea is set to strengthen the revenue-generating power in Asia of Cambridge company Ubisense – market leader in precise RTLS (Real-time Location Systems) based on ultra-wideband technology.

The company delivers complete solutions based on a highly scalable and reliable real-time location platform that is being deployed in mission critical applications around the world.

The latest Korean coup will prove significant, enabling the Cambridge company to leverage IBM’s strategy to deliver a Korean-compliant UWB-based RTLS with Ubisense’s technology.

IBM Korea is framing it as a joint investment and is aiming to deliver the solution later in 2008. It believes Ubisense can cash in by spreading its customer base in Korea with similar alliances.

The IBM-Ubisense solution complies with the bandwidth 7.2-10 GHz approved by the Korean government in 2006.

Ubisense’s platform and related system locates people and assets to an achievable accuracy of 15cm in 3D. IBM Korea is pitching into the partnership the radio frequency identification expertise it has built up over the years through its global solution centres.

Comprehensive field testing and monitoring of system development in the new bandwidth roll-out will be a critical part of the offering to Korean customers under the alliance.

Ubisense has already supplied more than 40 customers in Asian countries during the last 18 months and has logged up a number of success stories with clients such as Honda, DHL, Hellmann, Continental, Boeing and others in Asia, Europe and North America.

The joint investment with Ubisense shows IBM Korea is very confident for the future growth of the RTLS market in Korea and Japan – and IBM Korea will deploy the solution through implementation of actual projects with reference customer this year.

H.B. Choi, country manager of Ubisense Korea based in Seoul said: “It is very natural that Ubisense will extend its customer bases in Korea with a successful deployment and this is a great opportunity to build a concrete relationship between Ubisense and IBM’s Solution team through the joint investment.”

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At Former Landfill, RFID Monitors Workers and Waste

As contaminated soil and hazardous refuse are removed from the site, a location-tracking system ensures that workers can be rapidly evacuated during emergencies, and that containers of waste are properly routed.

By Brett Neely

July 25, 2008—Sondermülldeponie Kölliken (SMDK), a hazardous waste landfill in Kölliken, Switzerland, has adopted an ultra-wideband (UWB) location-tracking RFID system that can pinpoint employees and containers within its contaminated areas (known within the industry as "black areas"). The landfill is in the midst of a multiyear decommissioning program that will remove 545,000 tons of waste and ground cover from the site, located approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Zurich. Between 1978 and 1985, the site served as the repository for waste of "many different kinds and compositions," according to SMDK's Web site.

When the local government discovered that chemicals at the landfill site were leaching into the groundwater and threatening the drinking water, it ordered the complete dismantling of the landfill. The decommissioning is currently being carried out by a consortium known as ARGE Phoenix, and the waste removal is scheduled for completion by the end of 2012.


A dredger deposits contaminated soil in RFID-tagged containers.

The project calls for the construction of a building covering the entire landfill. As contaminated materials are removed, the air pressure within the work area is kept low, to prevent the escape of dust, gas and odors. The first phase of the ultra-wideband system took three months from conception to implementation, according to Thomas Kersten, a project manager with the endeavor's prime contractor, ESG, a German company specializing in IT systems integration.

The site's regulators required escape routes for all workers within the "black" areas, which cover slightly more than 50 percent of the 7-hectare site. The original decommissioning plan called for escape tunnels, but these proved impractical for both engineering and cost reasons. "So one guy said, 'Maybe it's enough if we can track every employee on the site,'" says Bruno Becker, marketing manager for Ubisense, which manufactures the UWB sensors (readers) and battery-powered tags used at SMDK. "It's really the first project of this sort."

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The Booming Business of Active RFID and RTLS

The RFID business is quintupling in value in the next ten years but the Active RFID business is growing about ten times, driven by such business as the $475 million military order currently being serviced by Savi Technology and innovations such as the first 100,000 Active RFID labels from Power ID with greatly enhanced range over passive alternatives. Within Active RFID, the market for Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) is projected to grow even faster - from $145 million today to $2.7 billion in 2018. Several analysts have come up with broadly similar figures to these projected by IDTechEx and they could of course, all be wrong. However, the trend in number of suppliers of active RFID and trials, the trend in the size of the largest orders and other leading indicators show that the business is already on the move in a big way. Reflecting the fact that such a huge new market will serve many very different user needs, the choice of technologies is also becoming richer and more varied by the day. We now have RTLS that is "plug and play" and even RTLS that is battery operated, no plugging in being needed - just "play". Indeed some new systems auto-calibrate - no need to map where everything is and no need to worry if readers are moved. Some RTLS locates to a few centimeters accuracy over fairly short range while other RTLS works at 300 meters away. There are now four main frequency bands to choose from in the array of RTLS offerings and for good reason, because the needs are so disparate. Indeed, no one knows how to land the biggest prize of all which will be major supply chains where we know the location of everything all the time.

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