RTLS For Dummies Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)As an Electronic Engineer moving into the RTLS market, RTLS for Dummies gave me an excellent overview and multiple case studies for RTLS deployments that I will be working on. Now I know the important pros and cons in each RTLS technology in choosing and deploying future RTLS system. Now I am comfortable moving forward with deploying such systems.

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Select, invest in, and deploy a Real Time Location System

Is your business ready for an RTLS? This friendly, hands-on guide shows you how to understand and implement this cutting-edge technology, explaining RTLS methodologies in plain English. From the initial deployment to monitoring to determining Return on Investment, you'll see how to successfully meet your needs, ensure data accuracy, and sustain your system.

Get your bearings - understand what RTLS does and its various methodologies, determine your needs, and select the right system

Prepare for installation - outline your goals, plan your applications, assess your site, select the right tag technology, and conduct a pilot test

Implement RTLS in your world - know how to train your staff, set expectations, set up monitoring, and assess whether the RTLS is working as desired

Deal with design issues - learn the most common pitfalls of RTLS implementation and how to handle them

Take the technology tour - use RTLS to locate at choke points, room level, presence, by association, and precisely

Monitor and secure your RTLS - verify and fine-tune your system, establish performance metrics, and manage security issues and vulnerabilities such as network attacks

Open the book and find:

An overview of RTLS and its uses

Explanations of underlying technologies

How to integrate RTLS into your other business applications

Comparative detail on technologies that enable different types of locating

Tips for evaluating RTLS vendors

Essential RTLS resources and references

Tips for getting the most out of the batteries used in tags

Privacy issues related to RTLS

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Hands-On ZigBee: Implementing 802.15.4 with Microcontrollers (Embedded Technology) Review

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(More customer reviews)Little more than an overview of the various 802.15.4 / Zigbee chips available from various manufacturers. Very little actual Zigbee information. Lacking any serious example source-code. Also the author has possibly the most annoying writing style I've ever read, with lots of music trivia filling the places where real information should be.

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Wi-Fi(TM), Bluetooth(TM), Zigbee(TM) and WiMax(TM) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book because it promised broad coverage of the currently most important non cellular, wireless technologies. We'll it delivers on the breadth of information but this is an extremely difficult book to read. Here's why:
1. It's coverage of the wireless subjects seems spotty and disorganized in that it jumps around between hardware and software subjects in an almost aimless way. Generally, the book does not provide sufficient and clear coverage of the system level or architectural issues for a given technology before deep diving into selected areas of technical detail. There tends to be too much detail in many specific technical areas without sufficient discussion of how the pieces work together.

2. It's written in broken English (actually seems to be poorly translated from French);
3. It is very poorly edited (includes many incorrect references to figures and tables, incomplete and broken sentences);
4. It suffers from death by acronyms. The book introduces the words behind the acronym once then never seems to use the "words" again, only the acronym. Unless you're already an expert in the subject, reading requires you to access the 16 page acronym dictionary after reading every few sentences. This is doable but makes reading difficult and clearly distracts the reader from appreciating the technical concepts being communicated.
Although the book seems to have a good deal of useful information. I would recommend that potential buyers look around for other coverage of the material before buying this hard to read book.

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The book provides a complete and detailed description of the recent wireless technologies including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee and WiMAX. These technologies are considered to be important topics in the telecommunication industry in the next decade. Some critical subjects are particularly developed such as security, quality of service, roaming and power conservation. The book also includes some chapters on practical aspects.

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Wireless Personal Area Networks: Performance, Interconnection, and Security with IEEE 802.15.4 (Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a refreshingly new reference for system engineers and architects who are designing and implementing wireless personal area network (PAN). I enjoyed reading the book. My favorite chapters:
Chap. 5: MAC Layer Performance Limitations;
Chap. 6: Activity Management through Bernoulli Scheduling;
Chap. 7: Admission Control Issues;
Chap. 12: The Cost of Secure and Reliable Sensing.

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Wireless Sensor Networks: Technology, Protocols, and Applications Review

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(More customer reviews)A concise and interesting book for the ones that want to start learning about wireless sensor networks (WSN). It presents facts regarding wireless communication, network function and sensor applications implying all seven layers of the OSI model.
It includes a consistent chapter about middleware (session and presentation layer) that i could not find in other similar books.
It may appear boring for those who know much about WSNs. This book is a very good starting point, but is not suitable for those who want to design WSNs.
I give it 4 stars because it has provided me a very good basic knowledge about WSNs.

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Infrastructure for Homeland Security EnvironmentsWireless Sensor Networks helps readers discover the emerging field of low-cost standards-based sensors that promise a high order of spatial and temporal resolution and accuracy in an ever-increasing universe of applications. It shares the latest advances in science and engineering paving the way towards a large plethora of new applications in such areas as infrastructure protection and security, healthcare, energy, food safety, RFID, ZigBee, and processing.Unlike other books on wireless sensor networks that focus on limited topics in the field, this book is a broad introduction that covers all the major technology, standards, and application topics. It contains everything readers need to know to enter this burgeoning field, including current applications and promising research and development; communication and networking protocols; middleware architecture for wireless sensor networks; and security and management.The straightforward and engaging writing style of this book makes even complex concepts and processes easy to follow and understand. In addition, it offers several features that help readers grasp the material and then apply their knowledge in designing their own wireless sensor network systems:* Examples illustrate how concepts are applied to the development and application of * wireless sensor networks* Detailed case studies set forth all the steps of design and implementation needed to solve real-world problems* Chapter conclusions that serve as an excellent review by stressing the chapter's key concepts* References in each chapter guide readers to in-depth discussions of individual topicsThis book is ideal for networking designers and engineers who want to fully exploit this new technology and for government employees who are concerned about homeland security. With its examples, it is appropriate for use as a coursebook for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students.

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Zigbee Wireless Networking Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a good reference to get before you start your work on a Zigbee project because it will get you thinking of the issues involved and if Zigbee is the correct solution. The protocal stack for Zigbee is quite large but it offers many features. Most manufacturers have a proprietary or third party stack that offers fewer features but take up substantially less code space. The book and examples are for Freescale processors (and thier IDE) but do apply generally to others. Some code from the book is available on the book's web site but as of when I checked last (Oct. 2009) it was quite a bit less than I would have expected. Hopefully that will change. Never the less there is plenty of Zigbee code online to download.

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ZigBee is a standard based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for wireless personal networks. This standard allows for the creation of very lost cost and low power networks - these applications run for years rather than months. These networks are created from sensors and actuators and can wireless control many electrical products such as remote controls, medical, industrial, and security sensors. Hundreds of companies are creating applications including Mitsubishi, Motorola, Freescale, and Siemens. This book is written for engineers who plan to develop ZigBee applications and networks, to understand how they work, and to evaluate this technology to see if it is appropriate to a particular project. This book does not simply state facts but explains what ZigBee can do through detailed code examples. CONTENTS:CHAPTER 1 HELLO ZIGBEECHAPTER 2 DECIDING ON ZIGBEECHAPTER 3 THE ZIGBEE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTCHAPTER 4 ZIGBEE APPLICATIONSCHAPTER 5 ZIGBEE, ZDO AND ZDPCHAPTER 6 THE ZIGBEE CLUSTER LIBRARYCHAPTER 7 THE ZIGBEE NETWORKING LAYERCHAPTER 8 COMMISSIONING ZIGBEE NETWORKSCHAPTER 9 ZIGBEE GATEWAYSAPPENDIX A ZIGBEE 2007 AND ZIGBEE PROAPPENDIX B ZIGBEE QUICK REFERENCEAPPENDIX C ZIGBEE CLUSTER LIBRARY QUICK REFERENCE*Details how to plan and develop applications and networks*Zigbee sensors have many applications including industrial automation, medical sensing, remote controls, and security*Hot topic for today's electrical engineer because it is low cost and low power

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ZigBee Wireless Sensor and Control Network Review

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(More customer reviews)I have had to read a lot of technical books lately, and this one does a good job. Zigbee is rather complex, and this book gives a very good, understandable overall description of the technology. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the Zigbee protocol.

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Building Wireless Sensor Networks: with ZigBee, XBee, Arduino, and Processing Review

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(More customer reviews)Faludi is kind to the reader by using simple language in the old school of: tell-them-what-you're-going-to-say, tell-them and then tell-them-what-you-said.
I bought the book because although I am not a beginner to electronics, I am to ZigBee, and I am lazy and want a quick start to what to get and why and which "start-bugs" to avoid. Faludi does a good job here and tries to please everybody by including non-Windows based (Mac and Linux) examples where he can (this market is clearly biased towards Windows).
Evidently you could simply download the free ZigBee spec' and read it - it is not too boring and took me about four days to scan through it, but for the cheap price, I would recommend that even a professional would recover the cost in time saved from this book but evidently he will not be interested in the simplistic treatment of how to connect A to B, just the tips and hints and as a quick broad outline for both the spec and the parts range.
For the beginner this book is excellent with both diagrams and photographs of how to wire up the half dozen-or-so connections between one module and another plus very full descriptions + screen shots of how to drive the (mainly Windows based) software.
The firmware example-code is consistently of the simplest-only-to-do-the-principle (there is no cheating by padding with large amounts of code) and gradually the reader is taken into more and more detail about protocols and networking in a painless manner.
A huge amount of work has gone into this book to make it look simple. It is also up to date (late 2010). I highly recommend it to anyone.

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Get ready to create distributed sensor systems and intelligent interactive devices using the ZigBee wireless networking protocol and Series 2 XBee radios. By the time you're halfway through this fast-paced, hands-on guide, you'll have built a series of useful projects, including a complete ZigBee wireless network that delivers remotely sensed data.

Radio networking is creating revolutions in volcano monitoring, performance art, clean energy, and consumer electronics. As you follow the examples in each chapter, you'll learn how to tackle inspiring projects of your own. This practical guide is ideal for inventors, hackers, crafters, students, hobbyists, and scientists.

Investigate an assortment of practical and intriguing project ideas
Prep your ZigBee toolbox with an extensive shopping list of parts and programs
Create a simple, working ZigBee network with XBee radios in less than two hours -- for under $100
Use the Arduino open source electronics prototyping platform to build a series of increasingly complex projects
Get familiar with XBee's API mode for creating sensor networks
Build fully scalable sensing and actuation systems with inexpensive components
Learn about power management, source routing, and other XBee technical nuances
Make gateways that connect with neighboring networks, including the Internet

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