Record set-up time for Out Board’s TiMax Tracker for Opera Carmen at the O2

Cambridge, 29 July 2010, Out Board achieve record set-up time as they deploy their Ubisense based TiMax Tracker for the Carmen Opera in London’s O2 arena 

When Raymond Gubbay staged his opera in-the-round Carmen spectacular in London’s cavernous O2 Arena for the first time, Out Board’s TiMax was called upon to help stitch together the audio, as it had previously done for Gubbay’s Royal Albert Hall productions.

For such a large-scale performance it was vital for the audience to localise to the individual performers, allowing the English-translated libretto to come across clearly. Sound designer Bobby Aitken, consulted Robin Whittaker, of TiMax developers Out Board, on how to scale up their distributed source-oriented reinforcement concept, previously used at the Albert Hall.

Outboard’s TiMax Tracker is based on the market leading Ubisense real-time location system (RTLS).  It was deployed for performer tracking in its first large arena-scale production, using six TiMax Sensors mounted on balcony rails above the corporate boxes. The raised s-shaped stage platform and lower forestage aprons were divided into 36 tracking zones which Tracker used to control continuously varying matrixed delay times in a 48-channel TiMax SoundHub processor.

Twelve leads and chorus members wore miniature Tags, which transmit radar-frequency ultra wideband (UWB) pulses, allowing the sensors to track them in three dimensions down to an accuracy of 15cm over a 100metre range, using a hybrid of AOA (Angle of Arrival) and TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival) analysis. The whole system was up and running in less than 45 minutes, a record for such a high-fidelity sound system able to track performers to such high accuracy.

Thirty low-profile Meyer UPJ arrays were mounted in adjacent pairs on 1m high stands around the stage edge. These were arranged as crossfiring pairs, covering all lower tier audience seats from opposite aspects, so that the TiMax precedence delays could localise up, down and across the stage.

Upper tiers were covered by twelve independent, radially-arrayed Meyer line-array hangs, which were continuously, dynamically focused by TiMax to the onstage localisation zones. A separate stereo music system hung above the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, located about two-thirds of the way upstage, helping to keep musical timings intact.  Carmen was a world first for performer tracking over such a large area.  TiMax Tags and Sensors proved up to the task, providing consistent localisation up to distances of 80-100m. The installation was a complete success and The Guardian newspaper was moved to comment “..the sound is sensitively done..”  An almost unheard of shower of praise from an opera critic.  A number of members of the audience also remarked to the sound crew “Clever how you make the sound move.”

Ubisense Military Training Application Video

Ubisense Military Training Solution delivers a unique integration between precision location, video cameras and training effects.  Its combination of features delivers the next generation of Exercise Control (EXCON) and After Action Review (AAR).

Features include

• Seamless precision indoor and outdoor tracking (correct room and sub 12 inches 3D)
• Real-time 2D and 3D visualization  including fly through capability, zoom, pan, jump to a participant or asset
•  Exercise recording and playback.
• Dynamic event generation for automatic indexing of virtual and video data.  Events can be generated as a person enters a 3D space created in the system or from external sources such as MILES.
• Video indexing and playback.  By knowing both the location of everyone in the excercise and the location of the video cameras it is possible to easily strip out the video relating to a particular event or person.
• Video labeling.  As we know the location of a person or asset we can place a label next to them on a video playback allowing users to easily identify participants.

Significant increase in production deployments secures additional top talent at Ubisense

Cambridge, UK, 26 July 2010 - Ubisense, the world Leader in Precise Real-Time Location Systems announce the arrival of ten new full-time staff members along with over 30 contractors, as they ramp up the delivery capacity for new production deployments.

Bucking the economic downturn trend during 2009, Ubisense experienced over fifty per cent business growth, and gained many new industrial clients, including customers such as EDF Nuclear, Duke Power Caterpillar, Airbus, Shell, Posco, Cummins and Boeing along with repeat orders with existing production customers.  In order to support new and existing customers and to maintain their leading edge product innovation, Ubisense have expanded their operations to include 40 new positions (ten full–time staff members and thirty contract staff) in both delivery and engineering teams.

Amongst the new appointments, Joe Newman, world renowned researcher of real-time location use in mixed reality joins the Ubisense software engineering team.  Joe is a leading authority in indoor location and its fusion with other digital enhanced virtual experiences, and was a key figure in the exploitation of location based extensions to augmented reality while at the Technical Universities of Vienna and Graz, and Cambridge University.

Arnaud Martin joins Ubisense in its new organisation in France to support such strategic accounts as Airbus, EDF Nuclear and the French Army. Arnaud brings many years of first hand experience of running multi facetted projects across geographically dispersed organisations such as EDF. Most recently he was a key member of the GE Energy Delivery Management team in France. In addition to outsourced operations in Eastern Europe the appointment of Don D’Mello strengthens the company’s position with India as an additional outsourced development location.

“We are delighted to have been able to add such a large number of talented people to our already great Ubisense team during 2010,” said Richard Green, Ubisense CEO. “Ubisense is entering a really exciting phase. I maintain that any business is only as good as its people and we are lucky to have such an exceptionally talented team at Ubisense, including our world renowned Chairman who heads one of the few computer labs in the world to attract research funding from companies such as Google!”

Ubisense Video - in production at BMW

Ubisense BMW from Caroline Brown on Vimeo.

Ubisense Tool Location System in action