BeSpoon is one of the only companies in the world to offer a precision indoor location technology accurate to within a centimeter for Industry 4.0 applications. The key to BeSpoon’s technology is an UWB circuit that boasts exceptional performance.

Ultra-wideband, or UWB, is known for precision and energy efficiency. However, the technology has not been able to offer the ranges required for use in industrial environments. BeSpoon, founded in 2010, worked with Leti to develop an UWB circuit capable of overcoming this hurdle. The circuit features high receiver sensitivity and can also transmit nanosecond pulse radio signals and measure “flight time” (the time it takes for a signal to make a round trip between two chips) to within eighth-of-a-nanosecond accuracy. The company’s innovations are protected by seven patents.

BeSpoon equips 4.0 industrial facilities with fixed beacons and tags placed on objects like batches of manufactured products, forklifts, robots, or drones, for example. The objects’ locations can be viewed in real time on a display. BeSpoon’s solution has been implemented at the Trumpf Smart Factory, a sheet-metal manufacturing plant in Chicago.

The technology can also be used in team sports to track athletes. The information gathered can then be used to improve the athletes’ performance.