System Architecture Working Group

The System Architecture Working Group’s purpose is to create an open, technology-independent architecture that can enable support of accurate location of mobile devices within different types of indoor venues. The architecture has been designed to support a wide variety of use cases and short range wireless access technologies and should serve most if not all stakeholders in the indoor location ecosystem. The architecture is intended to support venues ranging from the very small (e.g., small business, etc.) to the very large (e.g. corporate campus, sports arena, etc.) to the very distributed (e.g., nationwide retail chain, etc.) and to equally support all types of mobile devices (e.g., ranging from asset tags to smartphones, tablets or laptops). The open interfaces and technology-independence of the architecture allow for cost efficient multi-vendor deployments.  

The main activities of the SA WG are as follows:

  • Designing of the System Architecture (network elements and interfaces).
  • Defining functional requirements for network elements and interfaces.
  • Working with external Standard Development Organizations to specify the interface protocols.

The SA WG relates to the other working groups within the ILA in the following way:

  • Use Case WG: the SA WG “implements” use cases i.e., creates the architecture needed to support these use cases.
  • Pilot WG: the SA WG enables testing and demonstration of the indoor location ecosystem by providing the technical building blocks (network elements and interfaces).
  • Promotion WG: the open architecture created by the SA WG enables the Promotion WG to publicly advertise the indoor location ecosystem, attract industry players to participate and encourage venue owners and operators to deploy.

 The contributions and deliverables of the SA WG are:

  • White Papers defining and describing the indoor location System Architecture.
  • Requirements for indoor location System Architecture network elements and interfaces and selection of appropriate external SDOs to work with.
  • Liaisons with external SDOs to specify indoor location System Architecture interfaces and protocols.