The Communications Research Group at the University of Hull graciously invited me to speak on the subject of “Near-Field Wireless Technology.” My hosts inform me that the seminar will start with refreshments, posters and informal discussion from 2.00pm with a 2.30pm start for the main seminar. We should finish about […]
Q-Track
37 posts
Given a decent view of the sky, a GPS receiver can determine your latitude and longitude to a high degree of accuracy as good as a meter or so. But what if the latitude and longitude themselves are in error? That’s the problem faced by the continent of Australia. Every […]
Five years ago this week, tornadoes swept through the Huntsville, Alabama area. Today, I look back on the disaster by reposting my May 30, 2011 account of how my family, business, and community fared: “ÆtherCzar is Back, Reporting on the North Alabama Tornadoes.” I have updated the post to remove […]
SafeSpot™ systems make busy workplaces safer by warning pedestrians and forklift drivers of potential collisions. The system triggers a warning around blind corners if a forklift-forklift or forklift-pedestrian collision is imminent. Q-Track’s innovative system employs near-field electromagnetic ranging to detect proximity of forklifts and passive IR to detect pedestrians. Workers […]
One benefit of working at Q-Track is the opportunity to collaborate with talented people for whom radio is a passion, not just a profession. This past weekend, my Q-Track colleague, Mark Brown [N4BCD], participated in the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) “Field Day.” The weekend-long exercise tests the ability of […]
Near-field wireless technology is an emerging area of great importance in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Specific applications include low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) RFID, Near-Field Communications (NFC), Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging (NFER), and wireless power transfer. This talk discusses the origins of near-field wireless, surveys applications, presents near-field links […]
Blogging has been taking a back seat to everything else in my life, lately. This week, though, I have a variety of interesting and exciting developments to share. Today’s news is an update on the indoor location company I co-founded, Q-Track. The good news began a few month ago in […]
Here’s more good press for NFER® RTLS pioneer, Q-Track. Nuclear Engineering International reports: Workers in six US nuclear power plants are being trained in a virtual radiation environment so that they can develop skills to keep radiation exposures low. The Q-Track radiation worker training system combines a software program that can […]
Employing Q-Track’s patented Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging (NFER®) technology, Collision Avoidance Non-Line-of-Sight (CANLOS™) systems allow robots to detect and avoid colliding with their human co-workers even when when direct line-of-sight may be blocked. NFER® signals use low frequencies that penetrate better and diffract around obstructions that may block conventional RF and […]
Q-Track’s A-Team traveled to upstate New York the other day to show off NFER RTLS for tactical training at Tactical Conference 2012. Here’s the press release: May 01, 2012 – Verona, NY – Q-Track Corporation, the pioneer in Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging, will demonstrate NFER Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) products in and […]
Today’s Google Doodle honors Heinrich Hertz (1857-1893), discoverer of radio waves, on the 155th anniversary of his birth. Heinrich Hertz was not the first to experiment with radio waves. Contemporaries such as Charles Hughes and Oliver Lodge performed similar work in parallel. What set Hertz apart, however, was his tenacity […]
I’m passing on another press release from my company, Q-Track. The Q-Track team at I/ITSEC is having a great show and wanted to share this video, filmed yesterday, of their live demonstration. ORLANDO, FL – December 1, 2011. Q-Track’s NFER Real-Time Location System (RTLS) demonstration wowed attendees during the first […]
Today, I’m passing along a press release from my company, Q-Track. Swing by Booth 2737 at I/ITSEC in Orlando this week to see a demonstration of NFER RTLS. ORLANDO, FL – November 28, 2011. Q-Track Corporation, the pioneer in Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging, will be demonstrating NFER Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) […]
Last week, Huntsville, AL-based Q-Track Corporation promoted Stephen A. Werner to Chief Executive Officer. Werner previously served as Chief Operating Officer. He brings over twenty-five years of executive experience to Q-Track, including previous service as VP and General Manager for AAR Summa Technology. Werner also held senior positions with Sanmina-SCI […]
This video explains laser sintering. Laser sintering has revolutionized manufacturing by enabling low-volume manufacturing of plastic parts at a reasonable cost. My company, Q-Track, is shipping products in enclosures made by this process while we work out minor mechanical issues before going to injection molding for high-volume manufacturing. Hat tip: […]
This afternoon, I’ll be presenting at the Rocket City Geospatial Conference on the subject, “RTLS Enhancing Nuclear Safety.” Radiation exposure of workers in the nuclear industry poses a significant health hazard to the workers, and imposes substantial costs to the utilities that employ them. Q-Track has developed two Real-Time Location […]
Last month, I spoke at the 2011 International Microwave Symposium in Baltimore in a workshop on innovative and highly accurate local location systems. My slides are now available online. This workshop presentation explains basics of near-field physics and near-field RF links. Then, this presentation explains the implementation and performance of […]
Saturday July 9 marks the centennial of John Archibald Wheeler’s birth. Wheeler pioneered the theory of nuclear fission along with Niels Bohr. He contributed to the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. Afterward, he led a revival of general relativity theory including coining such memorable terms as “wormholes” and […]
Trade shows are always tricky places for live demos, particularly for Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS). With multiple vendors densely packed in adjacent booths, the RF noise levels make demonstrations risky if they are possible at all. That’s why my Q-Track colleagues were particularly pleased with the ability of NFER® RTLS […]
Following is a press release from my company, Q-Track. More details are in this recent post: NFER® RTLS for Forklift Tracking and Supply Chain Management. Always a pleasure to have good news to share! -Hans Invention expected to dramatically lower cost of supply chain visibility Huntsville, AL — June 7, […]
The most difficult part of a regular blog is staying in the rhythm of frequent posting. Coping with a natural disaster doesn’t make it easy. The historic tornado outbreak of April 27 sliced through Northern Alabama, leaving trails of devastation in its wake. The scale of the outbreak was difficult […]
Conventional RFID systems can identify assets passing through a portal, but once inside a warehouse locating the assets becomes a substantial challenge. Tagging each of the potentially thousands of assets in a typical logistics scenario is cost-prohibitive. But by identifying an asset, associating it with a forklift, and then tracking […]
Initiatives Magazine had a nice article about my company, Q-Track, and the many applications of our Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging (NFER®) Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS). Coincidentally, an older article from Technology Alabama also recently became available online: In an all-too-familiar story in the Huntsville area, a technology — which was practiced […]
I’ll be presenting a poster, “Characterization of Error in a Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging Real-Time Location System,” at the 2011 IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium this afternoon at 13:30 in the Solano ballroom. My collaborators, John Unden, Chris Weil (now at Georgia Tech), and I collected and analyzed over four hundred […]