Bosch Sensortec´s barometric pressure sensors are designed to be used in new mobile applications such as indoor navigation including tracking, E911, Blue force tracking and precise guidance. The sensors are now an inherent part of high-end smart phones and new services are evolving rapidly.
Combined technologies enable highly accurate altitude calculation. Source: Bosch SensortecNextNav delivers ‘floor-level’ altitude via a high quality pressure sensor such as the BMP 290 with a wide-area Metropolitan Beacon System (MBS) network. The MBS network provides service across a metropolitan area with high accuracy despite weather changes. NextNav has developed extra technologies to facilitate the conversion of altitude to a projected floor number, by collaborating with Bosch.
The two companies are collaborating on mobile applications based on Bosch’s BMP280, which the company claims provides accurate and scalable absolute altitude determination. Both companies cite precision in the other’s technology as the reason for the collaboration. Accurate altitude and floor detection are available through the use of highly scalable devices housed in flexible packaging and maintaining high performance. Bosch Sensortec´s pressure sensor specs are of 2.5 x 2.0 mm2 and a height of 0.95 mm in an 8-pin metal-lid LGA package, but draws only 2.7 µA. It features a relative accuracy of ±0.08 hPa, equivalent to only ±70 cm difference in altitude with resolution of 1.5 Pa.
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