Triteq partners in CityBee Project

Triteq Ltd has today announced that it has been chosen as a partner in the CityBee research and development project. CityBee is a project to develop a low-cost wireless metropolitan network for location and citizen services, funded as part of the European Sixth Framework Programme.

According to Steve Lane, Commercial Director for Triteq, each member of the CityBee project consortium brings their own set of skills and business experience to the project. "Triteq is contributing its expertise in Location Based Services (LBS) design, including experience in different wireless technologies, to the development of the CityBee system. With this knowledge of location technology we are leading the specification and design integration for the consortium, and providing expertise in the area of low power wireless systems. As a further benefit this project will allow us to increase our know-how of communication standards and low power systems, which will ultimately benefit all our customers."

The CityBee project aims to provide low-cost infrastructure, high performance metropolitan LBS wireless technology to be used by the emergency services for alerts, location and guide-assistance. Each network will be specifically designed and tailored to meet the needs of vulnerable groups within society such as children, elderly and disabled (both physically and mentally).

The proposed solution is based on the basic IEEE 802.15.4 radio frequency standard (Zigbee), which provides a license-free radio frequency band at 2.4GHz and has sufficient capabilities to develop a flexible, easily extendable, robust private wireless network. The network is being designed to be flexible and scalable, to cover a variety of scenarios from large metropolitan areas, up to entire cities. For this purpose, the network will be divided into clusters and a multi-cluster network/transport layer will be implemented. The CityBee network will be formed by static and mobile devices and a Control Centre.

Steve Lane explained, "One possible future application of such an infrastructure could be the communication with vulnerable or at risk people who require specific care. For example Alzheimer’s sufferers can have their freedom rights restricted because of the risk of finding themselves in unusual surroundings. This network infrastructure would enable them to continue with their lifestyle because of the security measures the technology creates and the flexibility of being able to wear smaller, smarter devices for monitoring and management purposes. The IEEE 802.15.4 offers the possibility to create complex networks with relatively low power consumption for the mobile nodes and permits high distances between nodes compared to other wireless network standards making it ideal for this type of patient monitoring. The lower cost of Zigbee compared to other location and communication technologies will have benefits for installers, operators and users of the CityBee network."

The town council of Barcelona will be the first to commission and evaluate the CityBee network in the district of "Nou Barris", where a public institution for impaired people called IMD (Institut Municipal de Persones amb Disminució) is located. The raw data bandwidth of the IEEE 802.15.4 specification is just 250 kbps but with the proper network implementation it is sufficient for the range of citizen services required.

About Triteq Limited
Triteq Limited is a leading UK based technology solutions provider specialising in electronic design and production services for both consumer and business clients. Triteq serves a broad market base of customers with a focus on telematics and safety-critical electronics and provides them with high quality, pioneering design solutions tailored to meet their precise requirements. These include electronic and electromechanical design, software, control platforms and integration of telematic technologies. Customers within medical, telecoms, defence, exploration and product innovation sectors benefit from Triteq’s in-house operations; comprising design, production, test, tooling and medical clean room facilities.

Established in 1992, Triteq has over 30 employees, is privately owned by its original founders and is accredited to ISO9001-2001. Triteq achieved the ISO13485 registration for medical device design in 2006.

For further information please contact:
Triteq Ltd, 3 The Courtyard, Stype, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 0RE. Tel: 01488 684554, Fax: 01488 685335; Email: info@triteq.com; Web: http://www.triteq.com

Louise Fairley
Triteq Ltd
Tel: 01488 684554
Email: louise.fairley@triteq.com

Nicki Langley
Neesham Public Relations Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 1296 628180
Email: nickil@neesham.co.uk

Photo: Barcelona will be the first to evaluate the CityBee wireless network in which Triteq is partnering.


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