82 FR 50626 - Notice of Localization and Tracking System Testing Consortium

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Institute of Standards and Technology

Federal Register Volume 82, Issue 210 (November 1, 2017)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the United States Department of Commerce, is establishing the Localization and Tracking System (LTS) Testing Consortium and invites organizations to participate in this Consortium. Participants in this Consortium will have the opportunity to test their LTS leveraging a unique capability on the NIST Gaithersburg campus. The goals of the LTS Testing Consortium are to demonstrate and further develop standardized localization and tracking system testing procedures, and to assess current state of the art. The LTS Testing Consortium will not evaluate whether any individual system is commercially feasible. Participants in the Consortium will be required to sign a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 210 (Wednesday, November 1, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 50626-50628]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2017-23807]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology


Notice of Localization and Tracking System Testing Consortium

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of Research Consortium.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an 
agency of the United States Department of Commerce, is establishing the 
Localization and Tracking System (LTS) Testing Consortium and invites 
organizations to participate in this Consortium. Participants in this 
Consortium will have the opportunity to test their LTS leveraging a 
unique capability on the NIST Gaithersburg campus. The goals of the LTS 
Testing Consortium are to demonstrate and further develop standardized 
localization and tracking system testing procedures, and to assess 
current state of the art. The LTS Testing Consortium will not evaluate 
whether any individual system is commercially feasible. Participants in 
the Consortium will be required to sign a Cooperative Research and 
Development Agreement (CRADA).

[[Page 50627]]


DATES: Letters of interest for participation in this LTS Testing 
Consortium will be accepted until December 15, 2017. LTS testing is 
expected to occur in April or May 2018, with a pre-event workshop in 
February, however dates are subject to change.

ADDRESSES: Letters of interest and requests for additional information 
can be directed to the NIST LTS Testing Consortium Manager, Nader 
Moayeri, of the Advanced Network Technologies Division of NIST's 
Information Technology Laboratory. Nader Moayeri's contact information 
are NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8920, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8920, 
USA, email: [email protected], and telephone: +1 301-975-3767.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information regarding the 
terms and conditions of NIST's CRADA, please contact Jeffrey DiVietro, 
CRADA and License Officer, NIST's Technology Partnerships Office, by 
mail to 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 2200, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-
2200, by email to [email protected], or by telephone at +1 301-
975-8779.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Consortium Objectives: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 31 
\1\ has developed the international standard, ISO/IEC 18305, ``Test and 
evaluation of localization and tracking systems'' that addresses test 
methods with performance metrics and considers environmental factors 
and usage scenarios expected in the field. NIST's objectives under this 
LTS Testing Consortium are to plan and conduct Test and Evaluation 
(T&E) activities based on ISO/IEC 18305. Goals of the T&E activities 
include:
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    \1\ International Organization of Standardization/International 
Electrotechnical Commission/Joint Technical Committee 1/Subcommittee 
31.
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    1. Assessment of ISO/IEC 18305 to identify improvements that can be 
incorporated into the next version of the standard; and
    2. Assessment of LTS technologies using the standardized test 
methods of ISO/IEC 18305 for the dual purposes of comparing 
technologies to identify strengths and weaknesses of various 
technological approaches and solutions, and to make it possible for 
Consortium Members to use that information as a basis for further 
developing their LTS. The results from the LTS Testing Consortium will 
allow the validation of ISO/IEC 18305. The results will also allow 
setting minimum performance requirements for various applications of 
LTS technology and enable comparisons based on common test methods. 
Results from this research are expected to improve the performance of 
LTS technologies.
    Background Information: Indoor localization is the capability to 
determine/estimate the location of an entity to be localized or tracked 
(ELT), such as a person, a robot, or some other object equipped with an 
appropriate electronic device \2\ in buildings and subterranean 
structures such as tunnels, caves, and underground mines. Tracking is 
the capability to estimate the location of such ELT on an ongoing basis 
and making the location information available to a tracking authority. 
Localization and tracking, whether indoors or outdoors, has 
applications in a wide range of domains including public safety, 
manufacturing, construction, health care, entertainment, social 
networking, building automation, and defense.
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    \2\ It is also possible to have such capability using cameras 
installed in the environment. In that case, there is no need for the 
person, robot, or other object to be equipped with an electronic 
device. However, such imaging-based techniques are beyond the scope 
of the LTS Testing Consortium.
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    Testing a LTS is complicated for several reasons:
     There are many categories of LTS. Some rely on presence of 
electronic infrastructure in the environment (building/tunnel/cave/
underground mine) to facilitate localization and tracking. Some systems 
require site-specific training and calibration before they can be used. 
Some systems need to have access to the floor plans of the building or 
need to know the global coordinates of its boundaries to operate. 
Therefore, one must be careful when comparing the performance of 
various systems to ensure the comparisons are fair.
     A LTS often has RF components. RF propagation can vary 
considerably from one building to another depending on the construction 
material used in the building, its floor plans, and objects present in 
the building. Therefore, the LTS must be tested in a variety of 
buildings, including a high rise, because a LTS typically has more 
difficulty in estimating the floor where the ELT is located than in 
estimating its horizontal location.
     Given that the inertial sensors present in ubiquitous 
smartphones and other devices used for localization suffer from 
``drift'' that worsens over time, it is important to test the LTS using 
long test scenarios, complex paths, different modes of mobility (e.g., 
walking, running, sidestepping, walking backwards, and crawling) and 
speeds of movement. Therefore, the use of large buildings is a 
prerequisite for a well-designed testing procedure.
    Considering the complexities of indoor localization testing above, 
vendors may not have the opportunity to test their LTS in a thorough 
and comprehensive manner. Therefore, potential users may be unable to 
determine whether a given LTS meets their needs. These issues 
demonstrate the need for standardized testing procedures that can be 
used to test and compare localization and tracking systems.
    Test and Evaluation (T&E) Activities: NIST intends to hold a pre-
event workshop for participants of the Consortium to prepare for the 
T&E activities. NIST anticipates the test event will take place over a 
period of two weeks (ten business days) about two months after the 
workshop. Each LTS will be tested over the course of 3-5 days during 
one of the two weeks. During the two-week T&E event, each LTS will be 
tested under NIST supervision by the participating company staff 
members according to the procedures of ISO/IEC 18305. Lessons learned 
from testing will be used to make modifications to the testing 
procedures and corresponding future revisions in ISO/IEC 18305. Going 
forward, NIST intends to use the same set of buildings so that future 
testing will indicate the industry's improvements in performance of 
indoor localization and tracking systems. Participation in this LTS 
Testing Consortium does not guarantee participation in future testing 
activities.
    Methodology: To the extent possible, NIST has chosen structures on 
its Gaithersburg, MD campus according to the guidelines specified in 
ISO/IEC 18305. NIST has instrumented the structures with one-inch 
diameter, circular floor markers. Locations of the floor markers have 
been surveyed by a professional surveying company using precision laser 
surveying equipment. In addition, the locations of ~200 Wi-Fi Access 
Points (APs) in these buildings have been surveyed and the Wi-Fi AP 
location information will be made available to Consortium Members 
solely for use in the Consortium and by each Consortium Member's LTS 
that will be tested at the T&E event. Multiple tracks, each consisting 
of a set of floor markers, will be used to test each LTS. By comparing 
the ground truth 3D coordinates of each floor marker with the estimate 
of the 3D location provided by the LTS under test, the estimation error 
can be computed and statistical analysis on the error done using the 
performance metrics specified in ISO/IEC 18305.
    Application Process: Interested parties should contact NIST using 
the

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information provided in the ADDRESSES section. NIST will then provide 
each interested party with a letter of interest template, which the 
party must complete and submit to NIST. Each party's letter of interest 
must include the following information:
    1. Whether the LTS to be tested is commercially available now or at 
an advanced productization stages so that it would be commercially 
available by the end of 2018.
    2. Market the indoor LTS is targeting.
    3. Given that large buildings will be used for testing, whether the 
number of units available to install in these buildings is sufficient 
for the system to go through a suite of tests, one building at a time. 
(As a point of information, the largest building to be used for testing 
covers 100,000 square feet of space.)
    4. The willingness and ability to send an adequate number of staff 
members to install and uninstall the indoor LTS in test buildings and 
operate the equipment to administer the tests under NIST supervision 
for a period of about 3 days. If for any reason a LTS runs into 
technical problems and cannot complete the tests in each building in 
the allotted time slot, NIST has designated the last two days of the 
week as ``make-up days'', where tests that were not completed in their 
allotted time slots can be redone. NIST will not be responsible for 
shipping equipment to NIST and back to your company.
    5. Willingness to provide all data form T&E activities to the NIST 
Consortium Manager for purposes of this project.
    6. A statement regarding whether the LTS requires deployment of 
equipment inside/outside a building in order to be tested; please 
specify the types of equipment that need to be deployed and how many 
per every 10,000 square feet of space.
    7. If the LTS uses RF technology, please specify the frequency 
band(s) and power levels the LTS uses.
    8. Whether the installation, uninstallation, or operation of the 
LTS is likely to cause damage of any type to the buildings or 
furnishing during testing.
    Letters of interest may be submitted to the LTS Testing Consortium 
Manager electronically using the email address provided in the 
ADDRESSES section. Letters of interest must include the name of the 
organization and the name and contact information for an official 
representing the organization. Letters of interest must not include any 
confidential information. NIST will not treat any information provided 
in the letters of interest as confidential or proprietary. NIST will 
review the letters of interest from each organization received prior to 
the closing date provided in the DATES section. Eligibility will be 
determined based on the information provided by the organization in 
response to the above request for specific information. NIST will 
notify an applicant in writing of its eligibility to participate in the 
LTS Testing Consortium. To participate, the eligible applicant will be 
required to sign a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement 
(CRADA) with NIST. Each participant's CRADA will have identical terms 
and conditions that are consistent with the requirements of Title 15, 
United States Code, Chapter 63, Section 3710a (Cooperative Research and 
Development Agreements). NIST does not guarantee participation or any 
other collaboration to any organization submitting a Letter of 
Interest.

    Authority: 15 U.S.C. 3710a.

Kevin Kimball,
Chief of Staff.
[FR Doc. 2017-23807 Filed 10-31-17; 8:45 am]
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