That is something which could definitely work. The question is if it has the capability to distinguish between two locos which are close together. Interesting nonetheless.
Thanks for sharing.

Or if there is two or more parallel tracks could it distinguish which track a train is on. I know my car's GPS sometimes thinks that I on a service road when I have just entered onto the freeway.
It could easily switch a train on to a occupied track if it was a little off. " Recalculating "

Hi Dale,

The meaningful words are "patent applied for", which in my reading, does not mean they will be granted a patent.

The technology for systems like this is readily available. It could be a mix of bluetooth, RFID (radio frequency identification), or something else of which I am not aware. Of course GT positioning may be completely new stuff, and they are to be congratulated on the applicaiion of it anyway. Studies done recently have confirmed that mobile phone users can plot one another by applying algorithms to the bluetooth connections, which might have applications in knowing where you are in a dark room (firefighters etc. spring to mind).

The global positioning system (GPS) is different, and receivers are incapable of positioning themselves better than about 1cm in the best scenarios, and those systems cost about $40k minimum. That is assuming they get the signal in the first place, which is impossible indoors in most cases.

I could not glean enough from the article, but this GT positioning might work in one of two ways.

1. A trigonometric solution, where signals received from three or more locations in the room can fix the position of the receiver. I would think that the ideal would be four locations, because firstly, the locations would have to talk to one another to calculate their position relative to one another, and then settle on what would be called fixed positions. Then the receiver would calculate a position from radiating signals from those four, using trigonometry.

2. There might be some radiating technology from a single source, which has discrete enough signal to determine position in a receiver, but I don't know anything about that sort of stuff.

regards
Kimball

So, is it that ever present guy Pat Pending who owns this technology too?

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Hi to everybody,
actually I had a long presentation of this system during the IMA Exhibition at Cologne last year, at their Booth, and I was really very impressed. The system even draws the layout by itself !! You just run for the first time a train in all the length of your layout and the track plan is drawn !!! Together with the other program, I think the GT Monitor, it does the whole job done: Knowing exactly where are all your locos, and which one where, so, location and Loco ID simultaneously. So, no more need for wires, s88, and track occupancy systems. Of course, if I remember correctly, it is not so cheap.
But the overall performance was very impressive and innovative.

Akis

Also, now I remember, and to enlarge further on Nielsenr comments, the other drawback was that you might need also <<satellite>> tranceivers in covered areas such as tunnels and hidden staging yards.
Akis

the difference being that with GPS-like solutions you have continuously minitoring of all vehicles, whereas with RFID the detection is at a predetermined point only.
Akis

This invention was already discussed last year:
https://www.marklin-user...for-2011.aspx#post248440
(see posts 142 through 144)

399 Euro for the starter set (receivers plus sender for one loco), 49 Euro for a loco sender, 79 Euro for an extra receiver.

A Global Positioning System that covers 30m².
In 80 seconds around the world, they say. It's a small world ...

Available in August 2010, they say.

Agreed, tried and true, keep it simple. I don't like the amount of modification it requires to your rolling stock. Track is one thing, 300 - 400 euro lok's is another.

One interesting method is the IR setup Ron (rschaffr) is using.

http://www.sem-co.com/~r.../trains/irifc/irifc.html



r/Thomas