Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Big-box retailers have a customer service challenge: it's hard to find merchandise due to such large spaces and items that are moved around for a variety of reasons. This creates frustration for consumers. Takemetuit(TMTI) has a smart-device indoor real-time location system or RTLS. The platform navigates people to within 10cm in 3 dimensions of any item, 99.6% of the time. There is no other RTLS technology with this level ofaccuracy and reliability. TMTI's challenge is to reduce the installation cost. The technology exploits theproperties of acoustic wave propagation to enable a smartphone to determine its location within a controlledenvironment. Audible acoustic frequencies in the range of 200Hz to 20KHz are employed to allow theapplication to function effectively on a regular smartphone without specialized hardware. A successful proof ofconcept for the system was implemented in 2016 in a completed collaborative NSERC Engage applied researchproject with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology's (SAIT) Centre for Innovative InformationTechnology (CIITS). The system was streamlined in a second SAIT CIITS two-year NSERC ARD2 projectthat ended in early 2020. The same team refined the tool and a proof of concept was implemented on a smart phone. Fundamental components were developed to embed the physical layer positioning engine within a user application suitable for use by a shopper. The acoustic indoor positioning system (AIPS) system is close tocommercial deployment. The goal is to move the product from technology readiness level (TRL) 8 to TRL 9, a commercial product.