This article provides more in dept setup information about the Smartspot Focus and it's capability's. The reader of this article should first follow Smartspot Initial Setup to get himself acquainted with the Intellifi Smartspot concept and the Cloud connectivity with Brain. This article will assume that the Smartspot is connected to a Brain and that the reader can find the Smartspot on the Brain and see Live Presences of the device.
Orientation
Smartspot Focus has the following orientation as shown in the figure below. All references to Smartspot
Focus beam steering technology will be expressed in cardinal and intermediate directions: North (N),
East (E), South (S), West (W),northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW).
Beam steering
Smartspot Focus uses an RFID Phased Array Antenna to achieve beam steering in any of the 25 possible beam directions. Each beam direction is represented as a virtual antenna within the Intellifi Brain.
The maximum antenna beam angle is 55°. In case of item localization, it may be useful to calculate the effective area using the following equations: L1 = tan(55°) * 𝐻. The full length of the scanning area is L = L1 * 2. The image below shows the setup with the known variables of: H as the height of the Focus and α as the maximum scan angle.
Effective area value lookup table
Front/side view Smartspot Focus
Antenna projection
If mounted to the ceiling, Smartspot Focus projects an antenna pattern on the ground. The projection of the antenna pattern is a square, as indicated in the image below. This pattern is seen from the Smartspot down onto the ground (See Device orientation). The maximum beam scanning angle of antenna numbers 3, 11, 15 and 23 is 55°.
| |
||||||
| North | ||||||
| West | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | East |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | ||
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | ||
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | ||
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | ||
| South | ||||||
Antenna zones
Based on the selected profile, antennas can be mapped or grouped into a zone. This saves data,
speeds up the total scan time per cycle and reduces the complexity of the system. Each antenna zone
is represented as an antenna within the Intellifi Brain.
Important: Antenna Zones are only active if the Antenna Presences setting is enabled! When this setting is enabled, the device sends item presence information per antenna instead on device level. Each antenna can be linked to its own location or grouped. (For more information see: What are Antenna Presences)
Example setup
See for example the figure below. In this setup each quadrant is represented by 4 antenna beams and
is grouped into a zone.
- The NW quadrant uses antenna beams 1, 2, 6 and 7 and has antenna zone
number 1, - the NE quadrant uses antenna beams 4, 5, 9 and 10 with antenna zone number 2,
- the SW quadrant uses 16, 17, 21 and 22 with zone number 3 and
- the SE quadrant uses 19, 20, 24 and 15 with zone number 4.
The total number of zones is 4. The antenna beams presented in grey aren’t used for this setup
and will be disabled. In the Intellifi Brain, antennas 1-4 (a.k.a. zones) can be linked to a location:
- Antenna zone 1 to Location Q1,
- antenna zone 2 to Location Q2,
- antenna zone 3 to Location Q3 and
- antenna zone 4 to Location Q4
Configuration profiles
This section gives some information about the different profile types as part of the common scenarios:
inventory, transition in/out and localization. The enabled state of antenna beams by selecting a certain
profile is represented using the colors: grey (disabled) and green (enabled).
To apply a configuration profile to a Smartspot Focus, see How to change Smartspot settings.
Default
This profile restores all changed settings due to selecting different profiles back to default. In the default configuration all 25 antenna beams are active and mapped to a single location and the Antenna presence setting will be disabled.
Inventory
These profiles can be used to count a batch of tags in an area for example storage room or warehouse. Each type has been designed for a certain maximum tags and stability. Depending on the profile used, the scan time per antenna beam and total scan duration required to scan a full cycle on all antennas will be adjusted. The table below lists all profile types and their characteristics.
In all four inventory profiles, all antenna beams are active and mapped/grouped into one antenna zone
as shown in the figure below.
Important: The antenna presence setting is disabled in all inventory profiles, so the antenna beam
mapping is just for background information and not meant to be used during location assignment!
| Density | Max tags | Scan time per beam (ms) | Scan duration for a full duty cycle on all antennas (sec) |
| Low | 50 | 240 | 6 |
| Medium | 250 | 1200 | 30 |
| High | 1000 | 2500 | 62.5 |
| Very high | 4000 | 5000 | 125 |
Transition In-Out
All profiles in the In-Out scenario enable the Antenna Presence setting, so each antenna zone should be mapped to its own location. The figure below shows some examples of the different setups supported by the profile types.
All transition profiles are optimized for a maximum of ca. 15 tags. The scan time per antenna beam is set to 200ms. The total scan duration is between 500ms and 1000ms and depends on the number of antenna beams used in each setup.
North - West
In profile In-Out N-W, antenna beams 8 and 12 are used in this setup and both are mapped to their own zone. See figure below.
North+South - Easth + West
In this profile, antenna beams 6,12,14 and 18 are used and mapped/grouped in zones 1 and 2. See
figure below.
Northwest - Southwest
In this profile, antenna 7 and 17 are used and mapped into their own zone. See figure below.
Northwest+Southeast - Southwest+Northeast
In this profile, antenna 7,9,17 and 19 are used and mapped/grouped into zones 1 and 2.
Micro zone localization
All profiles in the localization scenario enable the Antenna Presence setting, so each antenna zone should be mapped to its own location. The figure below shows a couple examples of the different setups supported by the profile types.
All localization profiles are optimized for a maximum of ca. 50 tags. The scan time per antenna beam is set to 300/400ms. The total scan duration depends on the number of antenna beams used in each setup.
Quadrant (4 zones)
In this profile, the antenna beams are grouped into 4 quadrants. Each quadrant is a separate antenna zone, see the figure below. The Antenna Presence setting is enabled, so each antenna zone can be linked to its own location.
The scan time per antenna beam is 300 ms. The total scan duration is 4,8 sec.
Center (1 zone)
In this profile only a single antenna beam is enabled to create a choke point. The Antenna Presence setting is disabled, so the antenna beam mapping is just for background information.
The scan time per antenna beam and the total scan time is 400ms.
3x3 Localization (9 zones)
In this profile, the antenna beams are grouped into 9 zones, see the figure below. The Antenna Presence setting is enabled, so each antenna zone can be linked to its own location.
The scan time per antenna beam is set to 300 ms. The total scan duration is 7,5 sec.
Setup device using profiles
Follow the steps in this article the assign a configuration profile to the Smartspot: How to change Smartspot settings
Inventory or Center profile
If you’ve selected one of the Inventory or Center profiles, only one item will be showed in the Spot section. Create a new location, name it and link the Spot and your new location using drag-and-drop.
Transition In-Out, Localization Quadrant or 3x3 profile
If you’ve selected one of the Transition In-Out or Localization (Quadrant or 3x3) profiles, all 25 antennas are shown. Create locations matching your selected profile and link each antenna zone/group to the location using
drag-and-drop. See the table below for location assignment per selected profile and the image below as an example.
If you want to know more about configuration profiles, see Configuration profiles.
| Profile | Antenna zones | Locations | Location assignment |
| 2 | 2 | 1-RFID -> Location N 2-RFID -> Location W |
|
| Transition North+South - Easth + West | 2 | 2 | 1-RFID -> Location N+S 2-RFID -> Location E+W |
| 2 | 2 | 1-RFID -> Location NW 2-RFID -> Location SW |
|
| Transition Northwest+Southeast - Southwest+Northeast | 2 | 2 | 1-RFID -> Location NW+SE 2-RFID -> Location SW+NE |
| Localization Quadrant (4 zones) | 4 | 4 | 1-RFID -> Location Q1 2-RFID -> Location Q2 3-RFID -> Location Q3 4-RFID -> Location Q4 |
| Localization 3x3 Localization (9 zones) | 9 | 9 | 1-RFID -> Location NW 2-RFID -> Location N 3-RFID -> Location NE 4-RFID -> Location W 5-RFID -> Location Center 6-RFID -> Location E 7-RFID -> Location SW 8-RFID -> Location S 9-RFID -> Location SE |
Example: Locations assignment for the Localization-Quadrant profile
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