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INCITS Approves Three New Real Time Locating Systems Standards
ANSI Takes Rapid Action, Accepts INCITS 371 series as American National Standards

Washington, DC – August 6, 2003 – The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) has approved three new standards that define two Air Interface Protocols and a single Application Programming Interface (API) for Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) for use in asset management.  INCITS Technical Committee T20 developed the INCITS 371 series of standards over a two-year period; the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved all three in the series as American National Standards within one week of approval by INCITS’ Executive Board.

“Everyone on the Technical Committee recognized the huge business value of establishing a standard for RTLS technology,” said T20 committee chairman Larry Graham, Global Manager of Manufacturing Technologies, General Motors Corporation. “We have no doubt that this standard will encourage widespread adoption of wireless location systems as the technology has already been proven to deliver tremendous bottom line cost savings for enterprises around the world.”

T20 vice chairman, Tony Cataldo, who is Manager of Network Engineering and Network Operations for Ford Motor Co., added: “With real-time locating system applications running in many of the Ford factories worldwide, we were already big believers in this technology, but it was critical that a standard be developed.  Now, with an international standards body backing the technology, I would expect a flood of new end users in a variety of industries—from automotive (and related) to retail to health care.  With a standard in place, we will all collectively benefit from reduced infrastructure costs and increased efficiencies across the supply chain.”

“As the world’s leading provider of wireless solutions for tracking and managing assets, I fully expect that by supporting this technical standard WhereNet will accelerate economies of scale driven by orders from a host of new customers, partners and infrastructure providers,” said Dan Doles, CEO, WhereNet. “Unlike RFID technology that has been plagued by proprietary systems that often result in integration bottlenecks, RTLS technology will now operate under a universal standard and be easily implemented across highly dynamic and complex supply chains.”

Overview of INCITS 371 series

INCITS 371.1:2003, Information Technology - Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) - Part 1: 2.4 GHz Air Interface Protocol
This document establishes a technical standard for radio frequency beacon systems that operate at an internationally available 2.4-GHz Band frequency and that are intended to provide approximate location (3m) on a regular basis (several times a minute).  The standard is generally applicable to applications in which assets need to be tracked throughout extensive areas that are within range of a permanent reader infrastructure.  A typical application might involve the monitoring of vehicles through a multi-station assembly line or within a delivery yard.

INCITS 371.2:2003, Information Technology - Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) - Part 2: 433-MHz Air Interface Protocol
This document establishes a technical standard for radio frequency beacon systems that operate at an internationally available 433-Hz Band frequency and that are intended to provide presence and location data for assets that have RTLS tags affixed.  The standard is generally applicable to applications in which assets need to be tracked through zones within areas that are within range of a permanent reader infrastructure.  A typical application might involve the monitoring of mobile assets within a military installation.

INCITS 371.3:2003, Information Technology - Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) - Part 3: Application Programming Interface
This document defines the Application Programming Interface (API).  To be fully compliant with this standard, RTLS must comply with either Part 1 or Part 2.  An API is a boundary across which application software uses facilities of programming languages to invoke services.  These facilities may include procedures or operations, shared data objects, and resolutions of identifiers.  

About INCITS
INCITS (www.incits.org) is the primary U.S. focus of standardization in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) encompassing storage, processing, transfer, display, management, organization, and retrieval of information. As such, INCITS also serves as the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) Technical Advisory Group for ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1. JTC 1 is responsible for International standardization in the field of information technology. INCITS is accredited by ANSI and operates under its rules, designed to ensure that voluntary standards are developed by the consensus of directly and materially affected interests. 

INCITS Executive Board of supplier and customer members includes Apple Computer, EIA, Farance Inc., Food Marketing Institute (FMI), Hewlett-Packard, IBM, ICCP, IEEE, Intel, Microsoft, Network Appliance, NIST, Office of the Secretary Defense /Science & Technology, Oracle, Panasonic Technologies, Purdue University, Sony Electronics, Sun Microsystems, the Uniform Code Council, and Unisys.