Designing an Indoor Real-Time Location System for Healthcare Facilities

This paper performs a feasibility analysis to find the best-fitting solu- tion in terms of quality/price ratio for designing and developing a Real-Time Location System for Indoor Positioning inside healthcare facilities. In particular, an overall comparison of all the available solutions is done, highlighting pros and cons of each technology (WiFi, RFID, WLAN, Ultra-Wide Band, Bluetooth Low Energy, ZigBee, magnetic fields, infrareds, ultrasounds, computer-vision and Pedestrian Data-Reckoning) for accuracy, price, coverage, infrastructure develop- ment and installation, and maintenance. A preliminary scope-review is also pro- duced, which summarizes the obtained outcomes in similar studies. In the results section the proposed system is illustrated via flowcharts and block diagrams, both for off-site and on-site scenarios.