About InLocation Alliance

Accurate indoor positioning opens up plenty of possibilities for new mobile services. For a consumer this could mean, for example, receiving directions to the right products and personalized product promotions in nearby shops; using real-time navigation inside a building; finding the precise location of assets and people; and even increasing security in emergency situations. For facility owners and local service providers this could enable, for example, increased local customer identification; enhanced product placement; and better customer satisfaction by deploying resources when and where needed. Additionally the role of indoor positioning services could play a significant role in the event of emergencies.

The InLocation Alliance focuses on creating solutions offering high accuracy, low power consumption, mobility, implementability and usability. It will create an ecosystem that stimulates innovation, enhances service delivery, and accelerates the adoption of solutions and technologies that optimize the mobile experience.

The InLocation Alliance was originally founded in August 2012 by: Broadcom, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, Eptisa, Geomobile, Genasys, Indra, Insiteo, Nokia, Nomadic Solutions, Nordic Semiconductor, Nordic Technology Group, NowOn, Primax Electronics, Qualcomm, RapidBlue Solutions, Samsung Electronics, Seolane Innovation, Sony Mobile Communications, TamperSeal AB, Team Action Zone and Visioglobe. The alliance was founded to operate according to four key objectives:

  1. An ecosystem of industry players to stimulate innovation, enhance service delivery and accelerate market adoption.
  2. Common technical understanding of key enablers, components, interfaces and standards needed for an e-2-e solution.
  3. Collection of most promising use cases with technical and business requirements.
  4. Execution of pre-commercial pilots and trials to measure the business value of use cases and to verify technical interoperability.

After the launch of the InLocation  Alliance, it has been rapidly growing and as a result it became a legal entity under IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO) in December 2013. At the time of this transition, ILA had expanded to 95 member companies. Today the InLocation Alliance is managed by a Board of Directors (BoD) elected from the charter members of the alliance: Broadcom Corporation, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd., Cisco Systems, Nokia Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung Electronics, Sony Mobile Communications AB, Telecom Italia. Structure-wise, in addition to BoD ILA has formed four working groups (WG) to manage the tasks and activities of the alliance. These working groups include promotion WG, use case WG, system architecture WG and pilot WG. More information regarding the working groups can be found here.

InLocation Alliance members target to pilot the most promising services and use cases from a business and solution point of view. The other important task for the  InLocation Alliance is to ensure a multivendor environment by promoting open interfaces and a standard-based approach.

InLocation Alliance members are encouraged to execute their own pilots and present their data to the InLocation Alliance. The primary solutions are based on enhanced Bluetooth® 4.0 low-energy technology and Wi-Fi standards using relevant existing or coming features of those technologies. These technologies are commonly used in mobile handsets and are thus a natural starting point for the InLocation Alliance’s efforts.