Indoor location systems for industrial production

An indoor location system for supporting production control of process sequences in an industrial production of workpieces, the indoor location system comprising:

• a plurality of mobile transceivers, at least one of the plurality of mobile transceivers being configured to determine a position of a selected mobile transceiver of the plurality of mobile transceivers in a three-dimensional space, each of the plurality of mobile transceivers being spatially assignable to a corresponding object from a group of objects within a framework of process sequences, each of the group of objects being movable in one or more dimensions in the three-dimensional space;
• an analyzer configured to determine the position of the selected mobile transceiver based at least on run times of electromagnetic signals between the plurality of mobile transceivers in a position determination process and to perform tracking of a movement of a target object assigned to the selected mobile transceiver based on the determined position of the selected mobile transceiver;
• and
• at least one spatially fixedly installed transceiver,
• wherein the analyzer is configured to perform position determinations in position determination processes in a localizing area spanned in dependence on a position of the at least one spatially fixedly installed transceiver and positions of mobile transceivers whose positions are temporarily known during the position determination processes.

A production control system for controlling production processes in a manufacturing plant, the production control system comprising:

• an indoor location system comprising:
• a plurality of mobile transceivers, at least one of the plurality of mobile transceivers being configured to determine a position of a selected mobile transceiver of the plurality of mobile transceivers in a three-dimensional space, each of the plurality of mobile transceivers being spatially assignable to a corresponding object from a group of objects within a framework of process sequences, each of the group of objects being movable in one or more dimensions in the three-dimensional space;
• and
• an analyzer configured to determine the position of the selected mobile transceiver based at least on run times of electromagnetic signals between the plurality of mobile transceivers in a position determination process and to perform tracking of a movement of a target object assigned to the selected mobile transceiver based on the determined position of the selected mobile transceiver,
• wherein the indoor location system is configured to provide data on a position of at least one mobile transceiver of the plurality of mobile transceivers in the manufacturing plant;
• and
• a manufacturing execution system configured to include the data on the position of the at least one mobile transceiver to a corresponding object assigned to the at least one mobile transceiver in a production control,
• wherein the indoor location system further comprises at least one spatially fixedly installed transceiver, and
• wherein the analyzer is configured to perform position determinations in position determination processes in a localizing area spanned by the plurality of mobile transceivers in dependence on a position of the at least one spatially fixedly installed transceiver and positions of mobile transceivers whose positions are temporarily known to the analyzer during the position determination processes in the plurality of mobile transceivers.

A method for production control, supported by an indoor localization, of process sequences in industrial processing of workpieces for manufacturing end products, the method comprising:

• identifying one of a plurality of mobile transceivers of an indoor location system as a mobile transceiver to be located during a position determination process,
• wherein at least one of the plurality of mobile transceivers is configured to determine a position of a selected mobile transceiver of the plurality of mobile transceivers in a three-dimensional space,
• wherein each of the plurality of mobile transceivers is spatially assignable to a corresponding object from a group of objects within a framework of process sequences,
• wherein each of the group of objects is movable in one or more dimensions in the three-dimensional space, and
• wherein the mobile transceiver to be located is assigned to a target object of the group of objects;
• identifying at least one mobile transceiver of the plurality of mobile transceivers as at least one mobile transceiver whose position is temporarily known, which during the position determination process is locally located at a position known to an analyzer of the indoor location system;
• determining, by the analyzer, location information of the target object by performing a position determination of the mobile transceiver to be localized based on run times of electromagnetic signals between the at least one mobile transceiver whose position is temporarily known and the mobile transceiver to be localized, wherein performing the position determination of the mobile transceiver to be localized comprises:
• determining a position of the mobile transceiver to be localized in a localizing area that is spanned by mobile transceivers whose positions are temporarily known, and wherein the localizing area comprises a subgroup localizing area that is spanned by a subgroup of the plurality of mobile transceivers;
• integrating the determined location information of the target object into the production control;
• and
• transferring information of the subgroup localizing area to a further analyzer of a further location system by transmitting position information of the subgroup of the plurality of mobile transceivers to establish a localizing area of the further analyzer with mobile transceivers of the further location system.