Overview

HPE Aruba Networking Open Locate is an initiative designed to standardize and enhance indoor location services across enterprise environments, aiming to improve the accuracy, flexibility, and interoperability of location-based solutions by leveraging multiple positioning technologies. To ensure seamless integration across various platforms, Open Locate also focuses on enabling the HPE Aruba Networking Access Points to broadcast their location, also known as location coordination information (LCI), through APIs and standardized protocols, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). This allows third-party applications and ecosystem partners to leverage real-time location data more effectively, driving innovation in asset tracking, indoor positioning, and other location-based services.

The current landscape of Wi-Fi location solutions requires manual placement of APs on a digitized floor plan for a location-aware infrastructure.  This can be time-consuming, resource-intensive, and prone to user error. Open Locate and HPE Aruba Networking Central delivers automatic placement of APs on a floor plan, empowering workplace owners to eliminate operational bottlenecks and enhancing their overall efficiency.

A key component of Wi-Fi-based locationing using the Fine Timing Measurement (802.11mc) protocol, which utilizes time-of-flight techniques to measure distances between access points and devices and enhance location accuracy. Support for FTM was introduced with the Wi-Fi 6 family of APs and is available with all AP models introduced since then. To explore use cases and understand how APs can auto-locate themselves to enable highly accurate indoor positioning using Open Locate, watch Delivering Accurate Indoor Location Services at Scale.

To support automatic AP placement the Central floorplan manager facilitates the seamless placement of APs on the floor plan. The floorplan manager forms the foundational layer by anchoring a digital floor plan to geo-referenced map services thereby automatically scaling the floor plan based on latitude and longitude coordinates.

High-level design

When Fine Time Measurement (FTM) is enabled in a site with HPE Aruba Networking Access Points, the following process takes place -

1. The APs engage in the exchange of FTM information.

2. The APs transmit FTM telemetry to HPE Aruba Networking Central.

3. Central performs detailed calculations to determine the location coordination information (LCI).

4. Central pushes the calculated LCI to the APs.

5. If the Advertise Location feature is enabled, APs can broadcast this information, allowing client devices to perform their own location calculations.

Licensing

Open Locate is available to New Central customers using AOS-10 based APs with Foundation and/or Advanced AP licenses. Separate licenses are not required for Open Locate.

For more information on subscription licenses, refer to the licensing documentation.